The famous pendulum was used by Foucault in 1851 to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth. This article says that it has been irreparably damaged. It seems to imply that the damage may have been caused through the Museum’s commercial activities.
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Jean Foucault: It didn’t. The rotation of the earth made it appear to cross.
So the pendulum at the Pantheon, where he actually did the experiment (and which I saw there just a couple of years ago) is a ringer? That seems stupid.
Does this mean it doesn’t rotate any more?
I don’t understand how the pendulum can’t be used any more – it’s a weight – there’s no reason it can’t be swung on a cable. I can understand their not wanting to do it any more. But how high was it hanging that it got damaged? Every Foucault Pendulum I’ve seen in a museum has been just barely suspended above the floor.
You can actually see a video of it here. It was basically suspended above a glass(?) table, so when it fell, I can imagine that it fell through the table and was damaged when falling onto the (very hard stone) floor.
The article says that the pendulum “bob” itself was damaged and is unrestorable, so I imagine that’s the issue rather than anything else.
The pendulum was moved to the museum in 1855, and has been there ever since, except that during a renovation of the museum, it was moved back to the Pantheon from 1995 to 2000. The pendulum in the Pantheon looks much shinier than the one in the museum (in photographs), so I expect it is, indeed, a ringer.
Actually, it sounds to me like it was caused by what Museum’s do in lieu of commercial activities: host fund raising parties.
If any one cares, I have met and talked with the Thibault Damour in the article. (I presented my thesis, which touched on the very affect he mentions with the Gravity Probe B at a conference he attended.) That’s about as close as I come to having met a celebrity, other than Wigner.
Isn’t the thing basically a big hunk of metal (a lead or iron ball with a brass or bronze coating)? It doesn’t sound like it would be all that hard to ‘restore’…
That what I was thinking,especially the ones that trace in sand, They are pretty much on the ground.
I wonder, where was Umberto Eco at the time of the “accident”?
fnord
The article says:
So their guests are rich and drunk*, and it seems the museum couldn’t be bothered to put up a railing or hire a guard to make people keep their hands off. Seems pretty irresponsible to me.
*I’ll skip the rant about the arrogance of money, and the one about the drunks. I know both are unfair generalizations.
I suspect the TES report may be confusing different bobs.
What I believe is still the current guidebook to the Musée des Arts et Métiers (though it was first published in 1998) corresponds to what I remember about their set-up in the chapel from when I was last there a couple of years back. They had three different Foucault bobs on display.
[ul]The first is the one he used in his initial private experiments in his house in the Rue d’Assas and then in the basement of the Observatory. From a strictly scientific perspective, this is the one that confirmed the prediction. It was housed in an individual glass case beneath the dome.[/ul]
[ul]The second is the one used in the Pantheon in 1851 during the subsequent public demonstration. In that sense, it is the famous Foucault pendulum. However, it also used to be housed in a separate glass case, rather than being suspended.[/ul]
[ul]The one they had being used in the demonstration in the museum is one created for the later demonstration by Foucault at the Universal Exhibition of 1855. This was the one suspended beneath the dome of Saint-Martin-des-Champs in the museum.[/ul]
The one currently swinging beneath the Pantheon is a replica.
Unless they’ve changed the layout and going by the details of the report, it was the 1855 bob that was damaged, not the most famous one. (And note that those confidently outraged in the report are those who may not be privy to the exact facts. Damaging the 1855 one would be embarrassing enough to explain the quote from the museum official.)
The famous 1851 bob has been subjected to detailed examination in the past and, even if now damaged, has been thoroughly documented. It’s significance as an object is now less as a potential subject of significant future research, than as a holy relic from the history of science. Which is how I’ve felt privilaged to see it in the past. If damaged, I’d no doubt look upon it battered in the same way.
Such are the swings and errors of affixion.