FOUCAULT PENDULUM, a device that visually demonstrates the rotation of the Earth. His invention is attributed to J. Foucault (1819-1868). At first, the experiment was performed in a narrow circle, but L. Bonaparte (who later became Napoleon III, the French emperor) became so interested that he suggested Foucault repeat it publicly on a grandiose scale under the dome of the Pantheon in Paris. This public demonstration, arranged in 1851, is called the Foucault experiment.

Under the dome of the building, Foucault suspended a metal ball weighing 28 kg on a steel wire 67 m long. directions. Under the pendulum, a circular fence with a radius of 6 m was made with a center directly below the suspension point. Sand was poured over the fence so that with each swing, a metal point attached under the ball of the pendulum could sweep it away in its path. To ensure the launch of the pendulum without a lateral push, it was taken aside and tied with a rope. After the pendulum, after tying, came to a state of complete rest, the rope was burned out and the pendulum began to move.

A pendulum of this length makes one complete oscillation in 16.4 seconds, and it soon became clear that the swing plane of the pendulum rotates clockwise relative to the floor. With each subsequent swing, the metal tip swept the sand about 3 mm from the previous place. In an hour, the rocking plane turned more than 11°, and in about 32 hours it made a complete revolution and returned to its previous position. This impressive demonstration drove the audience downright into hysterics; it seemed to them that they felt the rotation of the Earth under their feet.

To find out why the pendulum behaves this way, consider a sand ring. The northern point of the ring is 3 m from the center, and given that the Pantheon is located at 48 ° 51º north latitude, this part of the ring is 2.3 m closer to the earth's axis than the center. Therefore, when the Earth rotates by 360 ° within 24 hours, the northern edge of the ring will move in a circle of a smaller radius than the center, and will pass 14.42 m less per day. Therefore, the difference in the velocities of these points is 1 cm/min. Similarly, the southern edge of the ring is moving 14.42 meters per day, or 1 cm/min, faster than the center of the ring. Due to this speed difference, the line connecting the northern and southern points of the ring always remains directed from north to south.

At the earth's equator, the northern and southern ends of such a small space would be at the same distance from the earth's axis and, therefore, moving at the same speed. Therefore, the surface of the Earth would not revolve around a vertical column standing at the equator, and Foucault's pendulum would swing along the same line. The rotation speed of the swing plane would be zero, and the time for a complete revolution would be infinitely long. If the pendulum were set exactly at one of the geographic poles, then it would turn out that the swing plane rotates exactly 15 ° every hour and makes a complete rotation of 360 ° in 24 hours. (The surface of the Earth rotates 360 ° per day around the earth's axis. )

This is the first article on the topic of proper rotation of the Foucault pendulum. I think that for most it will be unexpected and turn everything upside down.

It is believed that the so-called Foucault pendulum shows and proves that the Earth rotates. It is also believed that this pendulum is named after a certain Frenchman - Foucault. Let's remember this pseudo-scientific tale.

Allegedly, there was a certain physicist and astronomer Jean Foucault, who first carried out his experiment at 2 am on January 8, 1851 in the cellar of his house on the street. Assas in Paris.

Then, in the same year, the future French emperor Napoleon III invited this same Foucault to repeat the experiment in public, and do it under the dome of the Pantheon in Paris.

During the experiment, the scientist took a weight of 28 kilograms and hung it from the top of the dome on a wire 67 meters long. At the end of the load, he fixed a metal point.

In an hour, the plane of oscillation turned more than 11 degrees, and made a full turn and returned to its previous position in about 32 hours. Everyone thought in unison that in this way the scientist allegedly proved that if the surface of the Earth did not rotate, the Foucault pendulum would not show a change in the plane of oscillation.

And no one was surprised by the apparent discrepancy in the time of a complete revolution: the Earth makes a revolution in 24 hours, and the pendulum - in 32 hours.

Eh ... In this historical tale there is not an ounce of truth, only huge weightless stones of lies.

Physicists, blinded by the clarity of this "experiment", do not even try to understand its essence. Let's take a look at this experience.

The load, suspended on a long cable from the ceiling of the temple, oscillates, and gradually each of its extreme positions shifts to the right relative to the previous one. It is believed that this occurs as a result of the fact that the Earth rotates.

But it's not. (For excellent students, I will specifically explain this. If we take into account all the rotations of the Earth around all centers - the Sun, the center of the Galaxy, etc. - then the movement of the Earth will be along an epicycloid with a multiple set of harmonics. With such a movement from the Earth, it will seem that the fixed stars jumping like mad grasshoppers, and we see a perfect rotation around one pole.)

About a couple of years ago, while working on the creation of the Unified Field Theory www.organizmica.org/archive/1101/tetp.shtml , I discovered a fatal error in writing the first derivative. I will not bother you with formulas, I will try to explain “on the fingers”.

In the old fashioned way, using Newtonian physics, we recall that a body left at rest continues its motion in a straight line and uniformly. In relation to the Foucault pendulum, this means that when making its oscillations from one extreme point to another, it moves in a straight line.

However, this is where the error lies. Newton was wrong. His laws have become invalid in our time. At rest, the body does not move in a straight line, but in a circle. The error in writing the first derivative is that Newtonian physicists missed the sine of the angle between the path and time vectors.

But, for example, Maxwell did not forget about this sine, and his famous Maxwell equations for the electromagnetic field already describe the movement of this field in circular orbits. All due to the fact that the first derivative contains two components (and not like Newton's - one) - this is the ROTOR and DIVERGENCE.

The rotor is an indicator of rotation, that is, the angular velocity, and divergence is an indicator of the expiration, that is, the helicity of rotation.

Here, for the sake of completeness, let us recall the beginnings of thermodynamics, which also take into account rotational motion - the work in a closed loop is zero. In simple terms, the body does not waste energy in only one case - if it makes a uniform circular rotation.

And this rotation has a natural basis. It has two directions - clockwise and counterclockwise. In our region, the rotation is clockwise. In the south - against.

So, when the Foucault pendulum oscillates, the line of this oscillation is not straight, it twists clockwise. As a result, the pendulum moves clockwise. Each time the pendulum rotates clockwise. And this rotation has nothing to do with the "rotation" of the Earth, which is motionless.

There is an opinion that there are forces, or beings, who know the true state of things. I described them in my book "Power in the Power of Power" (2017).

This direction is evidenced by the fact that SOMEONE gives names to the so-called discoverers not at all by the usual “surnames”, but strictly from the phenomenon that they allegedly discovered.

In this case, the name of the "inventor" Foucault is taken from the Italian it. fuso - "spindle", clearly emphasizing the rotational nature of such a pendulum. But the "surname" of Maxwell is formed in a similar way. Max_Vell - means Great Veles. This is the name of the same Serpent that rotates around the center of the ecliptic, that is, it is also a clear analogy with the rotation contained in Maxwell's equations.

These names are totally common in history, what can we say about its artificiality. All of them are taken from the Main Myth, about which I wrote and spoke more than once in my speeches.

For example, the names and surnames of those who reached the borders of a New World are all based on the designation of a bird that flew There - this is Gagarin, Yuri - letters. Gagara, Gal, Napoleon's nickname - lit. Rooster, Galvani Luigi, discoverer of galvanism - lit. Goose-Swan, Guk - letters. Swan, Columbus - lit. Dove, Cook - letters. Swan, etc.

Or else: Magellan - lit. The Magic Serpent surrounding the Earth, hence his "circumnavigation". Cortesius or Descartes - lit. The devil, that is, God demarcating the Earth. This is where the Cartesian coordinate system came from.

Such a regularity of the names of the "discoverers" suggests that that these names are the names of files and programs that implement the corresponding phenomenon.

And this, in turn, leads us to the following thought - the World is programmable; he is not alive, but cybernetic.

In such a model, an anachronism looks silly in the form of a spherical Earth flying in space along a Newtonian straight line.

The Spindle-Foucault pendulum proves that the Earth is at rest, and does not rotate at all, which is impossible in principle - both from mathematical considerations and from considerations of the physics of the gyroscope, and from considerations of the trajectories of astronomical objects.

(The horoscope CANNOT work on the surface of a ROTATING BALL, this follows from the formulas of theoretical mechanics applied CORRECTLY! RA - ed.)

When a boom arose on Earth for everything cosmic, the Foucault pendulum was launched in the temple of Zeus in St. Petersburg (Isaac's Cathedral).

According to Masonic traditions, this was done at night - from April 11 to April 12, 1931. From the same year, history began to be rewritten. As a result, those very “inventors” with speaking names appeared.

In 1986, Foucault's Isaac's pendulum was removed and thrown into the basement - the time has come for a cybernetic model of the Earth, no one can be deceived by a rotating cobblestone tied with a rope.

Jean Bernard Leon Foucault- French physicist, member of the Paris Academy of Sciences, born in Paris on September 18, 1819. In addition to the Foucault pendulum, the scientist designed a gyroscope, developed a method for measuring the speed of light in air and water, and also created one way of silvering mirrors.

What is a Foucault pendulum?

In the middle of the 19th century, Jean Foucault invented a device that clearly demonstrates the rotation of the Earth. At first, the scientist conducted the experiment in a narrow circle. Later I learned about this experience Louis Bonaparte. In 1851, the future French Emperor Napoleon III Foucault suggested that the experiment be repeated publicly under the dome of the Pantheon in Paris.

During the experiment, Foucault took a load weighing 28 kg and hung it to the top of the dome on a wire 67 m long. At the end of the load, the scientist fixed a metal point. The pendulum oscillated over a round fence, along the edge of which sand was poured. With each swing of the pendulum, a sharp rod, fixed at the bottom of the weight, threw sand about three millimeters from the previous place. After about two and a half hours, it became clear that the swing plane of the pendulum rotated clockwise relative to the floor. In an hour, the plane of oscillations turned by more than 11 °, and in about 32 hours it made a complete revolution and returned to its previous position. Foucault thus proved that if the surface of the Earth did not rotate, Foucault's pendulum would not show a change in the plane of oscillation.

​For this experiment, Foucault was awarded the Legion of Honor, France's highest award. The Foucault pendulum subsequently became widespread in many countries. Existing devices are basically constructed according to the same principle and differ from each other in terms of technical parameters and design of the sites on which they are installed.

How can the plane of rotation of the pendulum change?

The plane of rotation of the pendulum is affected by both the geographical latitude of the place where it is installed and the length of the suspension (long pendulums rotate faster).

A pendulum set at the North or South Pole will rotate in 24 hours. A pendulum mounted on the equator will not rotate at all, the plane will remain motionless.

Foucault's pendulum in the Paris Pantheon. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org / Arnaud 25

Where can you see the Foucault pendulum?

In Russia, the operating Foucault pendulum can be viewed at the Moscow Planetarium, the Siberian Federal University, in the atrium of the 7th floor of the Fundamental Library of Moscow State University, the St. Petersburg and Volgograd Planetariums, at the Volga Federal University in Kazan.

Until 1986, the Foucault pendulum, 98 meters long, could be seen in St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg. During the tour, visitors to the cathedral could observe the experiment - the plane of rotation of the pendulum turned, and the rod knocked down a matchbox on the floor at a distance from the plane of rotation of the pendulum.

The largest in the CIS and one of the largest Foucault pendulums in Europe is installed at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute. The bronze ball weighs 43 kilograms, and the length of the thread is 22 meters.

For this, a pendulum 2 meters long was used. In February, with the permission of Dominique François Arago, he repeated the experiment at the Paris Observatory, this time lengthening the pendulum to 11 meters. Foucault's assistant Froment also took part in the preparation of the experiment.

The first public demonstration was already carried out in March 1851 in the Paris Pantheon: under the dome of the Pantheon, he hung a metal ball weighing 28 kg with a tip fixed to it on a steel wire 67 m long. a circular fence with a diameter of 6 m was made, along the edge of the fence a sandy path was poured in such a way that the pendulum in its movement could draw marks on the sand when crossing it. To avoid a lateral push when starting the pendulum, he was taken aside and tied with a rope, after which the rope was burned.

The oscillation period of the pendulum with such a suspension length was 16.4 seconds, with each oscillation the deviation from the previous crossing of the sandy path was about 3 mm, in an hour the plane of the pendulum oscillations rotated more than 11 ° clockwise, that is, in about 32 hours it made a complete turn and return to its original position.

Physics of the experiment

Active Foucault pendulums

Foucault pendulums in the CIS (ordered by suspension length):

• On February 24, 2011, the pendulum appeared in Kyiv. It is installed in . The bronze ball weighs 43 kg, and the length of the thread is 22 m. The Kiev Foucault pendulum is considered the largest in the CIS and one of the largest in Europe.
• Foucault pendulum with a 20-meter thread at the Siberian Federal University (Krasnoyarsk).
• On June 12, 2011, the Moscow Planetarium was opened, where a Foucault pendulum with a thread length of 16 m and a ball mass of 50 kg was installed.
• On February 8, 2012, the Novosibirsk Astrophysical Complex was opened, which includes the Foucault Tower with a pendulum, the length of which is 15 m.
• In September 2013, a Foucault pendulum weighing 18 kg and 14 m long was launched in the atrium of the seventh floor of the Fundamental Library of Moscow State University.
• A Foucault pendulum weighing 12 kg and a thread length of 8.5 m is available at the Volgograd Planetarium.
• There is a Foucault pendulum in the Saint Petersburg Planetarium. The length of its thread is 8 m.
• In Belarus, Foucault pendulums are installed at the Belarusian State Pedagogical University named after Maxim Tank (the length of the thread is 7.5 m) and in the chapel at the Buinichskoye Pole memorial complex (Mogilev).
• Foucault's pendulum in Barnaul in AltSTU. II Polzunova at the Department of Experimental Physics in room 403 has a thread length of 5.5 m.
• On September 18, in the lobby of the main building of the Uzhgorod National University, the grand opening of a unique Foucault pendulum with a brass ball weighing 45 kg, with a built-in magnet for adjusting the movement took place.
• There is a lecture demonstration with a Foucault pendulum at the Moscow State Pedagogical University.
• Foucault's pendulum is at the Copernicus Science Center in Warsaw
• At the Faculty of Physics of SSU named after N. G. Chernyshevsky there is a Foucault pendulum with a nine-meter suspension thread and a mass of 28 kilograms.

Astronomical observations show that the planet Venus is completely cloudy, so that the "inhabitants" of Venus are deprived of the opportunity to observe heavenly bodies. Describe how they could accurately measure the length of their day.

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An excerpt characterizing the Foucault Pendulum

"Cette armee russe que l" or de l "Angleterre a transportee, des extremites de l" univers, nous allons lui faire eprouver le meme sort (le sort de l "armee d" Ulm)", ["This Russian army, which English gold brought here from the end of the world, will experience the same fate (the fate of the Ulm army). ”] He recalled the words of Bonaparte’s order to his army before the start of the campaign, and these words equally aroused in him surprise at the hero of genius, a feeling of offended pride and the hope of glory. "And if there is nothing left but to die? he thought. Well, if necessary! I will do it no worse than others."
Prince Andrei looked with disdain at these endless, interfering teams, carts, parks, artillery, and again carts, carts and carts of all possible types, overtaking one another and blocking the muddy road in three, four rows. From all sides, behind and in front, as far as the ear could hear, the sounds of wheels, the rumble of bodies, carts and gun carriages, the clatter of horses, blows with a whip, shouts of prodding, curses of soldiers, batmen and officers were heard. Along the edges of the road one could see incessantly fallen horses, skinned and not skinned, then broken carts, in which, waiting for something, lone soldiers were sitting, then soldiers separated from the teams, who in crowds were heading to neighboring villages or dragging chickens, rams, hay or hay from the villages. bags filled with something.
On the descents and ascents, the crowds became thicker, and there was an uninterrupted groan of cries. The soldiers, drowning knee-deep in mud, picked up guns and wagons in their arms; whips beat, hooves slipped, traces burst and chests burst with screams. The officers in charge of the movement, either forward or backward, passed between the convoys. Their voices were faintly audible in the midst of the general rumble, and it was evident from their faces that they despaired of the possibility of stopping this disorder. “Voila le cher [‘Here is an expensive] Orthodox army,’ Bolkonsky thought, recalling Bilibin’s words.
Wanting to ask one of these people where the commander-in-chief was, he drove up to the wagon train. Directly opposite him rode a strange, one-horse carriage, apparently arranged by homemade soldiers' means, representing the middle between a cart, a cabriolet and a carriage. A soldier drove in the carriage and a woman sat under a leather top behind an apron, all wrapped in scarves. Prince Andrei rode up and had already addressed the soldier with a question, when his attention was drawn by the desperate cries of a woman sitting in a wagon. The officer in charge of the convoy beat the soldier, who was sitting as a coachman in this carriage, because he wanted to go around the others, and the lash fell on the apron of the carriage. The woman screamed piercingly. Seeing Prince Andrei, she leaned out from under her apron and, waving her thin hands that had popped out from under a carpet scarf, shouted:
- Adjutant! Mr. Adjutant!... For God's sake... protect... What will it be? we are lagging behind, we have lost our own ...
- I’ll break it into a cake, wrap it! the angry officer shouted at the soldier, “turn back with your whore.”
- Mr. Adjutant, protect. What is it? the doctor screamed.
- Please skip this carriage. Can't you see it's a woman? - said Prince Andrei, driving up to the officer.
The officer glanced at him and, without answering, turned back to the soldier: "I'll go round them... Get back!"...
“Let me through, I tell you,” Prince Andrei repeated again, pursing his lips.
- And who are you? suddenly the officer turned to him with drunken fury. - Who are you? You (he especially rested on you) are the boss, or what? I'm the boss here, not you. You, back, - he repeated, - I will smash into a cake.
This expression apparently pleased the officer.
- The adjutant shaved off importantly, - a voice was heard from behind.
Prince Andrei saw that the officer was in that drunken fit of causeless rage, in which people do not remember what they say. He saw that his intercession for the doctor's wife in the wagon was filled with what he feared most in the world, what is called ridicule [funny], but his instinct told otherwise. Before the officer had time to finish his last words, Prince Andrei, with a face disfigured from rabies, rode up to him and raised his whip:
- Let me out of your will!
The officer waved his hand and hurriedly drove away.
“Everything from these, from the staff, the whole mess,” he grumbled. - Do as you please.
Prince Andrei hurriedly, without raising his eyes, rode away from the doctor's wife, who called him a savior, and, recalling with disgust the smallest details of this humiliating scene, galloped on to the village where, as he was told, the commander-in-chief was.
Having entered the village, he got off his horse and went to the first house with the intention of resting at least for a minute, eating something and clearing up all these insulting thoughts that tormented him. "This is a crowd of scoundrels, not an army," he thought, going up to the window of the first house, when a familiar voice called him by name.
He looked back. Nesvitsky's handsome face protruded from a small window. Nesvitsky, chewing something with his juicy mouth and waving his hands, called him to him.
- Bolkonsky, Bolkonsky! Can't you hear, right? Go faster, he shouted.
Entering the house, Prince Andrei saw Nesvitsky and another adjutant eating something. They hurriedly turned to Bolkonsky with a question if he knew anything new. On their faces so familiar to him, Prince Andrei read an expression of alarm and anxiety. This expression was especially noticeable on the always laughing face of Nesvitsky.
Where is the commander in chief? Bolkonsky asked.
“Here, in that house,” answered the adjutant.
- Well, is it true that peace and capitulation? Nesvitsky asked.
- I'm asking you. I don't know anything except that I got to you by force.
- What about us, brother? Horror! I’m sorry, brother, they laughed at Mack, but it’s even worse for themselves, ”said Nesvitsky. - Sit down and eat something.
“Now, prince, you won’t find any wagons, and your Peter God knows where,” said another adjutant.
- Where is the main apartment?
- We will spend the night in Znaim.
“And so I packed everything I needed for myself on two horses,” said Nesvitsky, “and they made excellent packs for me. Though through the Bohemian mountains to escape. Bad, brother. What are you, really unwell, why are you trembling so? Nesvitsky asked, noticing how Prince Andrei twitched, as if from touching a Leyden jar.
“Nothing,” answered Prince Andrei.
At that moment he remembered his recent encounter with the doctor's wife and the Furshtat officer.
What is the Commander-in-Chief doing here? - he asked.
“I don’t understand anything,” said Nesvitsky.
“I only understand that everything is vile, vile and vile,” said Prince Andrei and went to the house where the commander-in-chief was standing.
Passing by Kutuzov's carriage, the tortured riding horses of the retinue, and the Cossacks, who were talking loudly among themselves, Prince Andrei entered the hallway. Kutuzov himself, as Prince Andrei was told, was in the hut with Prince Bagration and Weyrother. Weyrother was the Austrian general who replaced the slain Schmitt. In the passage little Kozlovsky was squatting in front of the clerk. The clerk, on an inverted tub, turned up the cuffs of his uniform, hastily wrote. Kozlovsky's face was exhausted - he, apparently, also did not sleep the night. He glanced at Prince Andrei and did not even nod his head at him.
- The second line ... Did you write? - he continued, dictating to the clerk, - Kiev grenadier, Podolsky ...
“You won’t be in time, your honor,” the clerk answered irreverently and angrily, looking back at Kozlovsky.
At that time, Kutuzov's animatedly dissatisfied voice was heard from behind the door, interrupted by another, unfamiliar voice. By the sound of these voices, by the inattention with which Kozlovsky looked at him, by the irreverence of the exhausted clerk, by the fact that the clerk and Kozlovsky were sitting so close to the commander-in-chief on the floor near the tub, and by the fact that the Cossacks holding the horses laughed loudly under by the window of the house - for all this, Prince Andrei felt that something important and unfortunate was about to happen.
Prince Andrei urged Kozlovsky with questions.
“Now, prince,” said Kozlovsky. - Disposition to Bagration.
What about surrender?
- There is none; orders for battle were made.
Prince Andrei went to the door, through which voices were heard. But just as he was about to open the door, the voices in the room fell silent, the door opened of its own accord, and Kutuzov, with his aquiline nose on his plump face, appeared on the threshold.
Prince Andrei stood directly opposite Kutuzov; but from the expression of the commander-in-chief's only sighted eye, it was clear that thought and care occupied him so much that it seemed as if his vision was obscured. He looked directly at the face of his adjutant and did not recognize him.
- Well, are you finished? he turned to Kozlovsky.
“Just a second, Your Excellency.
Bagration, short, with an oriental type of hard and motionless face, dry, not yet an old man, followed the commander-in-chief.
“I have the honor to appear,” Prince Andrei repeated rather loudly, handing the envelope.
“Ah, from Vienna?” Fine. After, after!

Foucault's pendulum - what is it and what is it eaten with?

For conducting the experiment with the pendulum, Jean Foucault was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor - the highest award in France.

It takes its name from the name of a French astronomer and is used to experimentally demonstrate the daily rotation of the Earth. The first experiment with a pendulum was carried out by Jean Foucault in the basement of a house at night, in January 1851. To the top of the vault of the cellar, he attached a two-meter wire of hardened steel and hung a 5-kilogram brass ball on it. Taking the ball aside, fixing it with a thread near one of the walls, Foucault burned the thread, allowing the pendulum to swing freely. And in half an hour he witnessed the rotation of the Earth. At the next stage of his experiment, the scientist took a load already weighing 28 kg and hung it to the top of the dome on a wire 67 m long. At the end of the load, Jean Foucault fixed a metal point. The pendulum oscillated over a round fence, along the edge of which sand was poured. With each swing of the pendulum, a sharp rod, fixed at the bottom of the weight, dropped the sand approximately 3 mm from the previous place. After a couple of hours, it became clear that the swing plane of the pendulum rotated clockwise relative to the floor. In an hour, the plane of oscillation turned more than 11 degrees, and in about 32 hours it made a complete revolution and returned to its previous position. Foucault thus proved that if the surface of the Earth did not rotate, the pendulum would not show a change in the plane of oscillation. After the experiment was repeated in a narrow circle of people, the future French emperor Napoleon III suggested that Foucault repeat the experiment publicly under the dome of the Pantheon in Paris.

Geography of pendulums

The plane of rotation of the pendulum is affected by the latitude of the place where it is installed. If, for example, it is placed at the North or South Pole, then it will make a revolution in 24 hours. And a pendulum set at the equator will not rotate at all. Another factor is the length of the suspension. Long pendulums rotate faster.

After the experiment of the French astronomer, the Foucault pendulum began to be used all over the world. Existing devices are designed according to the same principle and differ only in technical parameters and the design of the sites on which they are installed.

From 1931 until 1986, the Foucault pendulum, 98 meters long, could be seen in St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg. During the tour, visitors could observe the experiment: the plane of rotation of the pendulum suspended under the dome turned, and the rod knocked down a matchbox on the floor at a distance from the plane of rotation. In 1986, the pendulum was removed and removed to the basement of St. Isaac's Cathedral due to a malfunction of the suspension mechanism. A dove, the original inhabitant of this place, was placed on a hook under the dome. For 30 years, the Foucault pendulum was in storage, but last year it was taken out again. The only demonstration of his work was planned for Cosmonautics Day, and then he became part of the museum exposition. Nikolai Burov, director of the St. Isaac's Cathedral GMP, suggested that the city authorities show the pendulum on the square in front of the cathedral, but this initiative did not find support. By the way, the pendulum hanging in St. Isaac's Cathedral was the largest in the world. The length of its thread is 98 m, and the bronze pendulum weighs 54 kg.

Today, in our country, in addition to the Novosibirsk planetarium, the operating Foucault pendulum can also be viewed in the Moscow planetarium (there is a pendulum with a thread length of 16 m and a ball mass of 50 kg), Siberian Federal University (filament length - 20 m). Right now, pendulums are swinging in the St. Petersburg (strand length - 8 m) and Volgograd (weight 12 kg and thread length 8.5 m) planetariums, as well as in the atrium of the seventh floor of the Fundamental Library of Moscow State University, at the Volga Federal University in Kazan. Another Foucault pendulum is located in Barnaul in AltSTU named after A.I. I.I. Polzunov at the Department of Experimental Physics. The length of its thread is 5.5 m.

The largest in the CIS and one of the largest Foucault pendulums in Europe is installed at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute. The bronze ball weighs 43 kg and the length of the thread is 22 m.

In total, there are about 20 models of Foucault pendulums in the world, including in the USA, France, Romania, Australia, Kuwait and other countries. Giant pendulums of this kind are now common exhibits in some major museums, including the Smithsonian in Washington DC and the Science Museum in London. There is also a pendulum at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York, and the highest operating Foucault pendulum in the world is located in the Oregon Convention Center, the length of its thread is 27.4 m.

To repeat the experience of an astronomer at home is real

The editors of the magazine "All about new buildings" studied how to make a Foucault pendulum at home. The above options can be useful, for example, for a visual demonstration of the daily rotation of the Earth to children.

Option 1. Tie a string to the pencil with a small round weight, such as a nut. Place a ruler on the table and, holding the pencil horizontally, push the pendulum so that it swings along the ruler. Next, you need to gradually turn the pencil in a horizontal plane. Turning the pencil will not affect the pendulum, it will still swing along the ruler. During this experiment, there should be no wind, draft, which could affect the pendulum.

Option 2. You can turn the stool upside down and fasten at the ends of its two legs, diagonally, some kind of wooden stick or metal tube, exactly in the middle of this design, you need to tie a pendulum. Make it move so that the plane of its swing passes between the legs of the stool. Slowly rotate the stool around its vertical axis. Now the pendulum is swinging in the other direction. In fact, it sways in the same way, and the change occurred due to the turn of the stool itself, which in this experiment plays the role of the planet Earth.

Option 3. Take a wooden board 50–60 cm long, 12–15 cm wide and 2–3 cm thick. Fix on it a U-shaped stand made of narrow wooden slats. The height of the stand should be about 30-40 cm. Drill a vertical hole in the middle of the top crossbar and insert a piece of wire into it, bending the top end so that it stays in the hole. Bend the lower end of the wire with a hook, a pendulum will be hung on it. This hook should rotate freely in its socket. On a thin cord, hang some heavy weight from the hook (a large nut or ball from a bearing wrapped in a cloth). Swing the pendulum so that its swing does not exceed the length of the stand. By turning the stand around its vertical axis counterclockwise, you thereby repeat in miniature the rotation of the Earth from west to east. Thus, the model of the Earth rotates, and the pendulum continues to oscillate in the same plane in which it was launched.