Foucault’s Pendulum

Context: 

The new Parliament which was inaugurated recently by the Prime Minister has interesting architectural features like Foucault’s Pendulum.

About the pendulum installed in the Parliament:

• Underlying Idea: The pendulum, which hangs from a large skylight from the triangular roof of the Constitution Hall, is meant to symbolise the “integration of the idea of India with that of the universe”.
• Designed and installed by:  National Council of Science Museums (NCSM), Kolkata.
• Specifications: With a height of 22 metres and a massive weight of 36 kilos, the pendulum is said to be India’s largest such object.
• Components: The piece has been crafted with gunmetal and affixed with an electromagnetic coil to ensure hassle-free movement.
• Time to complete one rotation: 49 hours, 59 minutes, and 18 seconds.
• First instance in India: In 1991, the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, commissioned the country’s first Foucault pendulum for public display from NCSM. After several studies and failed tests, NCSM installed the setup in 1993.

Foucault’s Pendulum:

• The Foucault pendulum is named for Léon Foucault (1819-1868), the French physicist who first devised the apparatus in the mid-19th century. This was the first laboratory demonstration that the Earth spins on its axis.
• Purpose: To illustrate the earth’s rotation.
• The pendulum consists of a heavy bob suspended at the end of a long, strong wire from a fixed point in the ceiling. 
• Functioning: 
  1. It must be designed, installed, and set swinging in such a way that the bob’s motion is influenced to the extent possible only by gravity.
  2. As the pendulum swings, the imaginary surface across which the wire and the bob swipe is called the plane of the swing.

News Source: Indian Express 

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