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 is observable as directly related to the magnitude of the Coriolis effect. The examples show that the Earth turns underneath the plane of the pendulum swing and how this change in relationship can be interpreted at different latitudes by evaluating the surface velocity components underneath the swing of the pendulum. For a pendulum swing at the North Pole it is shown that the surface velocity vectors of the Earth underneath one side of the pendulum swing are directed in opposition to the velocity vectors underneath the other side of the swing (see Figure 1). The Earth's rotation can then be