During Apollo 11, Michael Collins jokingly asked for a fourth of a certain kind of a device for Christmas to prevent this effect. For 10 points each:
[10m] Name this effect where two out of three namesake ring-shaped objects align along an axis and force an object to rotate in only two dimensions. This effect is caused by a loss of a degree of freedom and can occur when using Euler (“OY-ler”) angles.
ANSWER: gimbal locking
[10e] The command module had only three lock-prone gimbals, which were part of a “measurement unit” named for this word. The “moment of” this word is the rotational analogue of mass.
ANSWER: inertia [accept inertial measurement unit or moment of inertia]
[10h] One can avoid gimbal lock by using this man’s “rotation formula” to perform a single axis-angle rotation. This man’s derivative formula can be used to compute the Legendre (“luh-ZHAHN-druh”), Laguerre (“luh-GAIR”), and Hermite (“air-MEET”) polynomials.
ANSWER: Olinde Rodrigues [or Benjamin Olinde Rodrigues; accept Rodrigues’s rotation formula or Rodrigues’s formula]
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