my cell phone vibrates clockwise on a hard surface placed face up. it also vibrates clockwise face down. every cell phone i have come across reacts in the same manner regardless of brand or carrier. does this have anything to do with the earth’s magnetic field? I am in north america. will it react oppositely in a southern hemisphere?
Is this in response to a particular column?
Powers &8^]
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Moved to General Questions.
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It’s just a motor with an off center weight. Magnetic fields have nothing to do with it, it’s just how the motor is oriented in the phone.
Telemark you beat me to it. I was going to reference a howstuffworks article though.
wow, this question was NOT what I thought it would be.
So why does the phone turn the same direction when lying on the back and the front? If the direction was due to the motor alone, the direction would reverse when the phone is turned over.
In the HowStuff link, the axis of Tickle-Me-Elmo’s® eccentric weight is front-to-back. That would reverse the rotation when you turn over the toy. Your cell-phone’s eccentric’s axis is probably top-to-bottom, so the rotation does not change when you turn it over.