That was about four times the number of revolutions per minute that motors its size typically produced, Sir James said.

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And the rotation has to be both continuous and at a constant speed, which for the LZT is 8.5 revolutions per minute.

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It uses an electromagnetic field, rather than carbon brushes, to accelerate from standstill to up to 100, 000 revolutions per minute within 0.7 seconds.

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The biggest moment of drama came when the Austrian went into a spin as he hurtled towards the ground, turning at a maximum rate of 60 revolutions per minute.

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The team of researchers from Australia, the US, Canada and South Korea demonstrated motors that could spin at nearly 600 revolutions per minute, turning a weight 2, 000 times heavier than the yarn itself.

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Pulling out the 15k RPM card this late in the game would usually be frowned upon, but in the case of NHK, its latest development to spin at 15, 000 revolutions per minute has nothing to do with a hard disk drive.

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Once the container is spinning at the correct speed (typically a few revolutions per minute), the mercury spreads out to form a layer less than a millimetre thick, and in such a way that variations in the thickness of the mercury layer compensate for the imperfect shape of the container.

ECONOMIST: Mirror, mirror