Jeff P.
A picky point re: the RLG.
"A ring laser gyroscope works by sending two separate laser beams..."
Actually it is one laser beam split by a half-silvered mirror at 45 degrees to the laser's direction thus allowing one half of the beam to pass thru the mirror undeflected and move counter-clockwise around the "ring" path while the other half of the beam gets reflected and moves in a clockwise direction. Normally there wouldn't be an interference pattern set up since bothe beams come from the same source and travel the same path length. But, when the "ring" is rotated, say in the clockwise direcrtion, the clockwise beam travels slightly farther and the counter beam, slightly shorter to get to the detector and thus the interference pattern, fringes, is set up and is a function of the speed of rotation. Complicated mathematics of course, nothing is simple anymore, LOL.
Another disadvantage of a mechanical gyroscope is that as the speed of its rotation slows its axis precesses, i.e. no longer remains pointed in its original direction (conservation of angular momentum in a reotating system). Our earth's axis of rotation does the same thing, it precesses with a period of about 56,000 years and the North pole "wobbles". Super imposed on this wobble, whicn is caused by the gravitional force acting between the earth and sun and because the axis is tilted about 23-1/2 degrees from being perpendicular to the plane of the earth's orbit, is a "wobble" about the precession. This wobble is caused by the gravitational force between the earth and the moon.
Welcome to the adventure.