The tennis racket theorem - so called because it is perfectly illustrated by flipping a tennis racket - describes the movement of a rigid body with three distinct principal moments of inertia.
The axes with greatest and smallest moments of inertia will spin perfectly and the intermediate axis will spin wildly.
This effect is also known as the Dzhanibekov effect, after Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Dzhanibekov who noticed the theorem's effects while in space in 1985.
Who could fail to be impressed by that?! 😃
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