Foucault pendulum Foucault pendulum The Foucault pendulum ( ; ) or Foucault's pendulum is a simple device named after French physicist Léon Foucault and conceived as an experiment to demonstrate the Earth's rotation. The pendulum was introduced in 1851 and was the first experiment to give simple, direct evidence of the earth's rotation. Today, Foucault pendulums are popular displays in science museums and universities. The first public exhibition of a Foucault pendulum took place in February 1851 in the Meridian of the Paris Observatory. A few weeks later, Foucault made his most famous pendulum when he suspended a 28-kg brass-coated lead bob
Foucault pendulum vector diagrams be determined. The inverse ratio will determine the time observed for one full rotation of the pendulum swing in comparison to the duration at the pole of one day. From the diagrams two points of the pendulum swing can be chosen to project straight down to two points on opposite sides of the Earth (180° apart). This makes it easy to obtain the velocity vector difference and then the time observed for a full rotation from the inverse ratio. The examples show that the Earth turns underneath the plane of the pendulum swing and how this change in relationship can