Léon Foucault Catholicism that he previously abandoned. Foucault died of what was probably a rapidly developing case of multiple sclerosis on 11 February 1868 in Paris and was buried in the Montmartre Cemetery. The asteroid 5668 Foucault was named for him. His is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower. Collected Works: Léon Foucault Jean Bernard Léon Foucault (; 18 September 1819 – 11 February 1868) was a French physicist best known for his demonstration of the Foucault pendulum, a device demonstrating the effect of the Earth's rotation. He also made an early measurement of the speed of light,
Foucault pendulum vector diagrams along with the rotation of the Earth and has an angular velocity equal to that of the Earth's angular velocity. Once the bob is displaced from the central axis of the pendulum and then released there no longer is a force acting on the bob that causes it to revolve about the central axis of the pendulum and rotate (turn) with the Earth. The point of significance is that the force imparting an angular velocity to the pre-released bob is no longer acting on the swinging bob. At the North Pole, this force takes one day for the direction of