2009/02/11 by Reinhard A. Schumacher, Schumacher, Reinhard A., Brandon Tarbet +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Classical Physics (physics.class-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Popular Physics (physics.pop-ph) #physics.class-ph #physics.pop-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0902.1829
11 pages, 10 figures; revised formatting and with higher resolution figures
arxiv created 2020/11/15 · arxiv updated 2020/11/17
A quantitative method is presented for stopping the intrinsic precession of a spherical pendulum due to ellipsoidal motion. Removing this unwanted precession renders the Foucault precession due to the turning of the Earth readily observable. The method is insensitive to the size and direction of the perturbative forces leading to ellipsoidal motion. We demonstrate that a short (three meter) pendulum can be pushed in a controlled way to make the Foucault precession dominant. The method makes room-height or table-top Foucault pendula more accurate and practical to build.