Foucault Pendulum at the Oregon Convention Center

Each pin represents an hour...and there are 33 of them in the full circle (it takes the pendulum 33.5 hours to make a full circle at Portland's latitude - a Foucault Pendulum rotates slower and slower - from 15deg/hour at the poles, where the entire coriolis force is horizontal to 0deg at the equator, where the entire coriolis force is vertical).

See full description about 2/3 the way down this page:
http://myweb.msoe.edu/~westr/pdxconvention.htm

Category:

Education

Tags:

• foucault
• pendulum

[stevekny]

The pendulum cable gets an electromagnetic boost on each swing to counteract friction. It's my understanding that there is no physical boost mechanism. And a Foucault Pendulum has a period of revolution that is a function of latitude. At the north pole, the period is 24 hours. In Portland OR, it is 33.5 hours, and at the equator it will not rotate.

[whaleblubber1001]

make sure it doesnt hit you

[plsilva403]

Every time the pendulum swung through the center and switching off when the pendulum reached it's max amplitude. Isn't that how most of the work?

[plsilva403]

What about a simple magnet in the center, fix on the Earth and then a magnet faced with the same pole in the pendulum? It would surely give it momentum to recover from the air friction. Or maybe two magnets with the oposite poles (one fixed on the Earth and the other in the pendulum) faced to each other but one switching off every ti

[Hedgehoggy1983]

How do you keep the pendulum moving without effecting its own system? It surely proofs the rotation of the earth by going into different directions and returns to its original direction after 24 hours but I wonder about the suspension of the pendulum. Is there a motor spinning it?