Loyal patrons of the Indiana State Museum will remember one of its prized exhibits, the Foucault Pendulum. First installed in the original museum building in November 1968, the pendulum returns to amuse and amaze visitors in the new museum building. Housed in the Andrew J. and Jane M. Paine Tower, the pendulum demonstrates the earth’s rotation.
The pendulum in the Indiana State Museum reproduces the famous experiment first performed in Paris in 1851 by Jean Bernard Leon Foucault, (pronounced Foo–Koe) a French astronomer and physicist. Until a few hundred years ago, nearly everyone believed the earth was flat and the sun, moon and stars rotated about it.
Foucault is remembered as the first man to demonstrate the rotation of the earth without using anything outside of the Earth, such as the sun or stars, as a point of reference. A leading scientist of his day, Foucault also invented the gyroscope.
How does a Foucault Pendlum work?
How does the earth's rotation affect us?