Meaning of "spin up" in a phrase

It is informal, for sure.

'To be worked up about sth.' means someone is unhappy and agitated because of sth.

'To be spun up' means (for people) to be agitated (but not necessarily unhappy) and (for harddrives) to be active.

So the scientist is not agitated, and possibly not knowledgable, about 'it'.

I think it refers to the meaning of spun, as suggested by The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English:

• Excited, enthusiastic (US 1984)

In the context of the sentence above it means, the experimentalist is not upset about something.

However, I've seen the phrase used differently in the Mid-West. "Spun-up" basically means "up to speed" or "educated". If you want to get "up to speed" on a subject or topic one could say, "I need to be spun-up on that experiment" or "I'm not spun-up on that experiment"

I think this depends on context. In the NW US, I'd assume without further context this means they aren't familiar with it. So in this case, I would interpret this to be they are saying as someone who primarily does experiments, they aren't familiar with whatever theory was proposed.

If someone is falling behind, or joins a project late, they need to be "spun up", so that they are "up to speed".

Think of it like a car engine: The first thing that needs to happen to start and engine is the starter has to "spin up" the engine enough that the engine can start running on it's own. Once it's "up to speed" it is self sustaining. It's similar to showing someone the ropes.

I use phrases like this at work regularly: About someone new I could say:

"I'll bring them up to speed" or "I can spin them up"

I would say the first is much more common than the second, but both should be well understood.

What does spun up mean? I couldn't find a meaning that makes sense

My Answer is that it is a term used in the Navy. I was a missile technician on submarines in the cold war. When battle stations was announced "Man Battle Stations Missile, Spin up all missiles". This literally meant to energize the guidance gyros, which spin at high speeds in order to work. It was preparation for all out war. It became for thousands of cold war sailors, slang. To get someone angry "I like getting him all spun up" To get hyped up, excited, or angry yourself "I am all spun up"

Perhaps after thousands of sailors from 1960 to present, served on these submarines, it slowly leaked out into the world.