[olddog]

When I was a Kid someone showed me this neat thing. Bear with me here, it goes to the ring rotation. It was a square piece of wood about 1/4 - 3/8" square and maybe 10" long. They trimmed down a pop-sickle stick to about 3", with a whole drilled dead center. Then with a sowing pin, the pop-sickle stick is mounted dead center to the end of the square stick. So now it looks like a propeller that you can spin with you finger. On one corner of the square stick notches are cut. You take a pencil and rub it on the notches, while you rub your thumb on the edge of the stick. This will cause the propeller to rotate rapidly. You move your thumb to the edge 90 deg adjacent, and the propeller will change directions. If your thumb is not on an edge the propeller will not rotate.

You can tell people any mystic bull $h1t story you want on magic or the force and they cannot figure it out. Hand it to them and they cannot make it work because they do not know where to hold their thumb.

Back to the rings rotating. Since the the cross hatch is going both directions friction is not likely what is causing the rotation. My theory is that it is vibration that causes them to rotate just like the propeller on the stick above.