Foucault pendulum 2010, the cable suspending the bob in the Musée des Arts et Métiers snapped, causing irreparable damage to the pendulum and to the marble flooring of the museum. An exact copy of the original pendulum has been operating under the dome of the Panthéon, Paris since 1995. At either the North Pole or South Pole, the plane of oscillation of a pendulum remains fixed relative to the distant masses of the universe while Earth rotates underneath it, taking one sidereal day to complete a rotation. So, relative to Earth, the plane of oscillation of a pendulum at the North Pole
Foucault pendulum vector diagrams On one side of the pendulum swing the surface velocity vectors are angled upwards and to the side but on the other side the vectors are angled downwards and to the opposite side. Since these vectors are not all in the same plane as the pendulum swing and are not balanced in the same direction there is a change in relationship between the surface and the plane of the pendulum swing. The surface velocity vectors underneath the swing of the pendulum can be separated into three components ("x", "y", and "z") for the 3-dimensional system in order to evaluate the