Gdańsk University of Technology crowned with a gilded image of the Allegory of Science. The main building encloses inner courtyards covered by glass domes designed by W. Czabański and Z. Wilk and installed in 2004. In 2012 the South Courtyard was officially renamed in honour of Johannes Hevelius. The Foucault pendulum is designed to show the rotation of the Earth on its axis. It is named after the French physicist who first performed a similar experiment at the Paris Pantheon in 1851. The machine that made its appearance in 2005 in the South Courtyard of Gdansk University of Technology is a 64 kg metal
Seconds pendulum had confirmed that the Earth was an oblate spheroid. Moreover observations were made with a pendulum to determine the local acceleration due to local gravity and centrifugal acceleration; and these observations coincided with the geodetic results in proving that the Earth is flattened at the poles. The acceleration of a body near the surface of the Earth, which is measured with the seconds pendulum, is due to the combined effects of local gravity and centrifugal acceleration. The gravity diminishes with the distance from the center of the Earth while the centrifugal force augments with the distance from the axis of