Foucault’s Pendulum
Foucault’s Pendulum
The Foucault pendulum, or Foucault’s pendulum, named after the French physicist Léon Foucault, was conceived as an experiment to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth.
The experimental apparatus consists of a tall pendulum free to oscillate in any vertical plane. The direction along which the pendulum swings rotates with time because of Earth’s daily rotation. The first public exhibition of a Foucault pendulum took place in February 1851 in the Meridian Room of the Paris Observatory. A few weeks later, Foucault made his most famous pendulum when he suspended a 28-kg bob with a 67-metre wire from the dome of the Panthéon in Paris. The plane of the pendulum’s swing rotated clockwise 11° per hour, making a full circle in 32.7 hours.
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