Pendulum the pendulum could be used to measure the force of gravity. During his expedition to Cayenne, French Guiana in 1671, Jean Richer found that a pendulum clock was minutes per day slower at Cayenne than at Paris. From this he deduced that the force of gravity was lower at Cayenne. In 1687, Isaac Newton in "Principia Mathematica" showed that this was because the Earth was not a true sphere but slightly oblate (flattened at the poles) from the effect of centrifugal force due to its rotation, causing gravity to increase with latitude. Portable pendulums began to be taken on voyages
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