Foucault pendulum Foucault pendulum The Foucault pendulum ( ; ) or Foucault's pendulum is a simple device named after French physicist Léon Foucault and conceived as an experiment to demonstrate the Earth's rotation. The pendulum was introduced in 1851 and was the first experiment to give simple, direct evidence of the earth's rotation. Today, Foucault pendulums are popular displays in science museums and universities. The first public exhibition of a Foucault pendulum took place in February 1851 in the Meridian of the Paris Observatory. A few weeks later, Foucault made his most famous pendulum when he suspended a 28-kg brass-coated lead bob
The Passion of Michel Foucault "The Boston Globe", book critic George Scialabba described "The Passion of Michel Foucault" as an "intensely interesting" work which provides an "astoundingly vivid though non-prurient description of (mainly homosexual) sadomasochism". The historian of science Roger Smith writes that Miller turns Foucault's life "into a drama for our times". The Passion of Michel Foucault The Passion of Michel Foucault is a biography of the French philosopher Michel Foucault authored by the American philosopher James Miller. It was first published in the United States by Simon & Schuster in 1993. Within the book, Miller made the claim that Foucault's experiences in the