Google gets it. Celebrate Léon Foucault’s 194th birthday by sharing your swinging HMNS memories!


September 18, 2013
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If you’ve yet Googled today, you may have noticed a lovely homage to Léon Foucault, the famous French physicist best known for inventing the Foucault pendulum (that ever-popular swingy thing at HMNS).

The Foucault Pendulum gets the Google Treatment!

The Foucault Pendulum has long been one of the most memorable areas of the Museum, even if some people (this girl) lack the patience to actually watch the pendulum kick over a peg.

When a peg does go over, there are inevitable cheers. As the pendulum swings, it moves clockwise with the Earth’s rotation, knocking over one peg approximately every 15 minutes. Although the pendulum appears to be traveling around the circle, it’s actually the earth that moves, making this exhibit a perfect visualization of the earth’s rotation.

(Foucault himself said it a little less simply, like this: T = 24/sin q where T equals the amount of time to make one complete revolution and q is the latitude of the pendulum.)

We scoured the interwebs (as we are wont to do) to gather some of our favorite photos of patrons standing enrapt around the pendulum.

Have your own photos or memories to share? Hit us up on social media!

Authored By Caroline Gallay

Caroline was the Digital Media Editor at HMNS from 2012 to 2013. She was responsible for telling the Museum’s story online. You could find Caroline on the site profiling characters around the museum and making sure you knew what the what was going on around this crazy/awesome place.


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