Just because nobody complains doesn't mean all parachutes are perfect.
Benny Hill (1924-1992)
Picture: REX FEATURES
Foucault's pendulum resultIn 1851, the rotation of the Earth was proved experimentally by Leon Foucault. After weeks of work, he recorded in his journal that he made this discovery at 2:00 am working with a pendulum in the cellar of the house he shared with his mother. Using a steel wire 2-m long with a 5-kg brass bob, he had made a pendulum suspended in a way that freely permitted it, he found that its plane of oscillation slowly rotated relative to the ground. This led to using much longer versions of his pendulum. He found that the angular velocity of the rotation equalled wsinq where w is the angular velocity of the Earth rotating on its axis, and q is the latitude of the site of the pendulum. He demonstrated his discovery on 31 Mar 1851 for Napoleon.« |
