James Goh, 23, a Queens’ College engineering student at Cambridge University, broke the Guinness World Record for the longest fidget spinner duration
A Cambridge University engineering student has broken the world record for the longest duration spinning a fidget spinner on one finger – clocking 30 minutes 34.54 seconds.
James Goh, 23, constructed his own fidget spinner to secure the Guinness World Records title, surpassing the previous record by nearly five minutes. He was at school when the popular children’s toys swept the globe in 2017.
“This has been a hobby of mine since I was a kid, so I’m delighted to get the record – although my finger did ache a little bit after holding it in the same position for so long,” he said. “I suppose in a way I’ve taken the fidget out of fidget spinning!”
His achievement is approximately 20 times longer than a standard spinner purchased from a shop. He established the record in Hong Kong, where he lives when not studying at university in Cambridge, on December, 16 2025. James said his fascination with gyroscopes started when he watched the spinning top in Christopher Nolan’s 2010 sci-fi film Inception.
As part of their degree programme, Cambridge engineering students examine the physics of gyroscopes, which are vital components used in everything from smartphones to spacecraft navigation systems. The Queens’ College student applied his learning, particularly in aerodynamics and tribology – the science of friction – to enhance his hobby.
“People do often ask me why I’m so interested in spinning tops and fidget spinners,” he said. “There’s definitely something hypnotic about them and their mechanical efficiency is pretty remarkable. I also think it’s got a lot to do with being competitive; it’s a very interesting optimisation problem because the goal keeps shifting.
“There are always new materials or techniques to use to tweak the design – there are always improvements that can be made.”
James – who is studying on the Manufacturing Engineering Tripos, an option available during the final two years of a Cambridge engineering degree – drew upon academic papers to guide his experiments and help determine the Guinness World Record-breaking formula.
He initially developed his formula for spinning tops, before applying it to engineer his “pulsar fidget spinner” and establish the new record.
“It involves a lot of data collection to come up with 3D models, which I then make in the workshop,” he said.
“Differential equations have helped me a lot to refine the formula, although there is no actual analytical solution, because technically it’s unsolvable. There’s no magical, optimal spinning time, but you can get close to it.”
The centre of James’s spinner is constructed from lightweight hollow aluminium, while tungsten – an exceptionally dense metal – is concentrated around the edges to store kinetic energy.
This means all the weight sits on the outside – generating a “high moment of inertia” – and enabling it to spin for an extended period. He said: “Designing a spinner is basically about three things: maximising the energy you start with, minimising the energy you end with and transitioning between those two states as slowly as possible, so you’re losing energy as slowly as possible. The tricky thing is that these factors are all in conflict with each other, and in a really complicated way.”
You must be logged in to post a comment Login