Earth's rotation Foucault in 1851, which consisted of a lead-filled brass sphere suspended from the top of the Panthéon in Paris. Because of the Earth's rotation under the swinging pendulum, the pendulum's plane of oscillation appears to rotate at a rate depending on latitude. At the latitude of Paris the predicted and observed shift was about clockwise per hour. Foucault pendulums now swing in museums around the world. Earth's rotation period relative to the Sun (solar noon to solar noon) is its "true solar day" or "apparent solar day". It depends on the Earth's orbital motion and is thus affected by changes
Paraconical pendulum about its vertical axis as well as swinging in two perpendicular directions. Therefore a paraconical pendulum has three degrees of freedom. When the rotation of the Earth is taken into account, the formal equations in classical mechanics of the behavior of this dynamical system are rather complex. The rolling friction of the ball upon the flat is extremely low, so that a paraconical pendulum has a high Q factor, principally determined by air resistance. Typically a paraconical pendulum is built as a solid body with a stiff rod, rather than with a flexible wire or cord, and its length is