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Hammer flipping mystery (see details)

Asked by Harp (19179points) July 15th, 2008

If you hold a regular claw hammer out in front of you so that the face of the hammer points to your left and the claw to your right, then you toss the hammer up (without imparting any spin) so that the handle does one complete revolution around the head of the hammer before you catch it again, you’ll find that the face now points to your right and the claw to your left. Why?

It obviously has to do with the difference in mass between the two sides of the hammer, but I can’t recall enough of my physics to explain what’s going on here.

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