The+Foucault+Pendulum

= The Foucault Pendulum =

 The Foucault Pendulum (not to be confused with Foucault's Pendulum, the 1988 mystery novel by Umberto Eco) was a visual representation meant to show the rotation of the Earth. Named after French physicist Léon Foucault (also not to be confused with Michael Foucault, the twentieth century French philosopher), the 1851 experiment was the first simple visual proof of the rotation of the Earth, which allowed for a more simple scientific proof than explaining the complete mechanics and mathematics of said rotation. While the Foucault Pendulum was the first visual representation of this phenomenon, by the time of its creation and exhibition, this was already a well-recognized fact. The original pendulum was first showcased in the meridian of the Paris Observatory, but Foucault's most famous pendulum was showed in the Paris Panthéon a few weeks later.

 The pendulum consists of a lead ball suspended from a wire, surrounded by measurement tools. The mechanism of the pendulum relies on the fact that the plane of the pendulum, depending on where it is located, will move in relation to the rotation of the Earth. For example, at the North and South poles, the plane of the pendulum will move 360 degrees in one day clockwise at the North Pole and counterclockwise at the South Pole, as the pendulum would remain still and the Earth rotates underneath it. At the equator, the pendulum would not move at all, and for all latitudes in between, the angular speed of the pendulum is proportional to the sine of the latitude. This is described by the formula angular speed equals 360 times the sine of latitude over day, not counting the Coriolis effects acting upon the pendulum at this time. To the viewer's eye, the pendulum follows a circular path as the day goes on, facing different angles at different times. The experiment is slightly volatile, however, as the start position needs to be extremely precise in order for the results to be properly and accurately recorded.

 Ultimately, the Foucault Pendulum has a lot of applications in the current world. While it may not have represented a new scientific discovery, it made the concepts behind and proof of that discovery more readily accessible and easily understandable by the general public. This was one of the first endeavors intended to make science more accessible to people who were not already familiar with the field; an area which leads to more educated people overall, and is therefore very important. This experiment was very popular in French classrooms at the time, and it made a large impact on the way the sciences were taught, not only in the region, but also in the world.