Foucault’s Pendulum Dented in Museum Mishap | Wired Science

Museum Mishap sounds like the name of a hipster/indie-rock band combining a MIDI Accordian, a keytar and some claves…

The cable holding a model of Foucault’s Pendulum snapped last month at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris, sending the 60-pound ball crashing to the ground. It was permanently dented in the fall.

Léon Foucault’s 1851 experiment remains a mesmerizing evidence that the Earth does, in fact, rotate. Scientists were aware of this, but the fact that the pendulum swings through 180 degrees over the course of a day provides tangible proof that we are on a planet spinning in space.

The Umberto Eco novel, Foucault’s Pendulum, made the mid-19th-century physics demonstration famous. The novel even opens at the Musée des Arts et Métiers. The pendulum played a key role in the high-literary conspiracy involving the Knights Templar at the heart of the novel.

Via Geoff Brumfiel at Nature News

Photo: Graham Chandler/Flickr

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