Foucault Pendulum And The Pantheon

Today, the Pantheon resembles less of a church and more of a museum.

The church had long been stripped off its altar.

Foucault pendulum at the Pantheon, in Paris.

Ever since then, it had been taken for granted that the earth rotates on its axis.

But nobody had actually demonstrated the fact.

Jean Bernard Leon Foucault was the leading experimental physicist of his day.

Foucault noticed that the rod tended to maintain its plane of vibration even when rotated.

Foucault first demonstrated his discovery to the Academy of Sciences at the Paris observatory in January 1851.

The experiment drew a large crowd.

People were fascinated to see the earths rotation rendered actually visible before their very eyes.

Never before a scientific experiment had so captured the imagination of the public.

Instead, churchmen participated in the scientific controversy.

The remarkable experiment eventually helped erase the last traces of lingering doubt the Church had against the heliocentric model.

In 1911, the Jesuit priest J.G.

Hagen wrote a major study called The Rotation of the Earth: The Earths Mechanical Proofs Ancient and New.

Foucault pendulum at the Pantheon, in Paris.

Photo credit:Stephen Heller-Murphy/Flickr

The Pantheon where the original Foucault pendulum was installed.