Léon Foucault 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, discovered eddy currents, and is credited with naming the gyroscope. Foucault was the son of a publisher in Paris, where he was born on 18 September 1819. After an education received chiefly at home, he studied medicine, which he abandoned in favour of physics due to a blood phobia. He first directed his
Foucault's Pendulum in "Faith In Fakes", reminiscent of the episode in the novel. He also describes French ethnologist Roger Bastide who bears a resemblance to the character of Agliè. Eco's novel was also a direct inspiration on Charles Cecil during the development of Revolution Software's highly successful point and click adventure game "", in which an American tourist and a French journalist must thwart a conspiracy by a shadowy cabal who model themselves on the Knights Templar. Foucault's Pendulum Foucault's Pendulum (original title: "Il pendolo di Foucault" ) is a novel by Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco. It was first published