What is Foucaults pendulum?
Foucault’s pendulum was an instrument devised by French physicist (a scientist who studies matter and energy and the interactions between the two) Jean Bernard Leon Foucault (1819-1868) in 1851 to prove that the Earth rotates on its axis. Prior to Foucault’s experiment, there was no proof that the Earth rotated. Many people believed that the Earth was still while the sun and stars moved around it. Foucault’s pendulum consisted of a large, swinging, iron ball suspended from a ceiling by a 200-foot-long wire. There was a pointer attached to the bottom of the ball, which etched the ball’s path in the sand below. When the ball was first released, it would scratch a straight line in the sand. However, over the course of a day, that line would shift again and again until it came full circle. Since the pendulum did not change course, the only other explanation was that the Earth was rotating beneath…
just read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault_pe… there’s one of these at the natural history museum in houston that we go to all the time. there’s little blocks arranged around a circle on the floor, and during the course of the day, the pendulum knocks them over in turn going around the circle with time during the day. they reset the little blocks and restart the pendulum every day before the museum opens for the day..
