Foucault's pendulum
by Vinutha[ Edit ] 2010-02-13 12:43:45
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 (1819-186
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.
