Maybe one of you folks could help me with this. I remember reading a while a ago about some scientist discovering an unexplained behavior of Pendulums during eclipses. As I recall It was very slight and he wasn’t even sure it happened or if it was just a mistake. They also said that they were looking forward to the most recent eclipse that was going to pass over many good planetariums and museums in Europe, and they thought they could get some good data. Anyway the eclipse is long gone and I still can’t find anything about how the studies went (It also doesn’t help that I can’t remember the name of the effect) If this rings any bells with anybody I’d appreciate the info.
I think the eclipse part may be misleading as it’s probably the spring tide that occurs with a solar eclipse that might be effecting anything.
I don’t think anything has been announced after the fact yet. The data has to be analyzed and reviewed. That means viewing hours of video tape from different locations and studying frame-by-frame. It could take years to process it all.
The effect was noticed in a couple prior experiments, but unconfirmed. Thus the push to study it in the last eclipse. It is unexplained. It involves a Focault pendulum, which is a pendulum that is not constrained to one axis, so it swings with the rotation of the Earth. The effect in question is an apparent increased turning rate only when directly in the path of the eclipse. Thus the questionable nature of the effect, as there doesn’t appear to be any reason why it should happen.
But will I be able to balance an egg?