Foucault Gyroscope
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Foucault Gyroscope
The Foucault gyroscope was a device created by French physicist Léon Foucault in 1852, conceived as a follow-up experiment to his Foucault pendulum in order to further demonstrate the Earth's rotation. It was the prototype of the modern gyroscope. Foucault felt that the results of the pendulum experiment had been misunderstood. He therefore endeavored to create an apparatus with a "body freely suspended by its center of gravity and rotating around one of its principal axes", allowing the study of a plane with "absolute directional stability".: "C'est faute d'avoir compris dans son acception véritable la fixité du plan d'oscillation, que beaucoup de personnes se sont fait, de la déviation, une idée inexacte, et ont méconnu sa valeur et son uniformité. Mais, si au plan d'oscillation du pendule on substitue le plan de rotation d'un corps librement suspendu par son centre de gravité et tournant autour d'un de ses axes principaux, on a à considérer un plan physiquement défi ...
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Foucault's Gyroscope
The Foucault gyroscope was a device created by French physicist Léon Foucault in 1852, conceived as a follow-up experiment to his Foucault pendulum in order to further demonstrate the Earth's rotation. It was the prototype of the modern gyroscope. Foucault felt that the results of the pendulum experiment had been misunderstood. He therefore endeavored to create an apparatus with a "body freely suspended by its center of gravity and rotating around one of its principal axes", allowing the study of a plane with "absolute directional stability".: "C'est faute d'avoir compris dans son acception véritable la fixité du plan d'oscillation, que beaucoup de personnes se sont fait, de la déviation, une idée inexacte, et ont méconnu sa valeur et son uniformité. Mais, si au plan d'oscillation du pendule on substitue le plan de rotation d'un corps librement suspendu par son centre de gravité et tournant autour d'un de ses axes principaux, on a à considérer un plan physiquement défini ...
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Léon Foucault
Jean Bernard Léon Foucault (, ; ; 18 September 1819 – 11 February 1868) was a French physicist best known for his demonstration of the Foucault pendulum, a device demonstrating the effect of Earth's rotation. He also made an early measurement of the speed of light, discovered eddy currents, and is credited with naming the gyroscope. Early years The son of a publisher, Foucault was born in Paris on 18 September 1819. After an education received chiefly at home, he studied medicine, which he abandoned in favour of physics due to a blood phobia. He first directed his attention to the improvement of Louis Daguerre's photographic processes. For three years he was experimental assistant to Alfred Donné (1801–1878) in his course of lectures on microscopic anatomy. With Hippolyte Fizeau he carried out a series of investigations on the intensity of the light of the sun, as compared with that of carbon in the arc lamp, and of lime in the flame of the oxyhydrogen blowpipe; on the int ...
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Foucault Pendulum
The Foucault pendulum or Foucault's pendulum is a simple device named after French physicist Léon Foucault, conceived as an experiment to demonstrate the Earth's rotation. A long and heavy pendulum suspended from the high roof above a circular area was monitored over an extended time period, showing that the plane of oscillation rotated. The pendulum was introduced in 1851 and was the first experiment to give simple, direct evidence of the Earth's rotation. Foucault pendulums today are popular displays in science museums and universities. Original Foucault pendulum The first public exhibition of a Foucault pendulum took place in February 1851 in the Meridian of the Paris Observatory. A few weeks later, Foucault made his most famous pendulum when he suspended a brass-coated lead bob (physics), bob with a wire from the dome of the Panthéon, Paris. The proper period of the pendulum was approximately 2\pi\sqrt\approx 16.5 \,\mathrm. Because the latitude of its location was \ph ...
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Earth's Rotation
Earth's rotation or Earth's spin is the rotation of planet Earth around its own Rotation around a fixed axis, axis, as well as changes in the orientation (geometry), orientation of the rotation axis in space. Earth rotates eastward, in retrograde and prograde motion, prograde motion. As viewed from the northern polar star Polaris, Earth turns counterclockwise. The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. This point is distinct from Earth's North Magnetic Pole. The South Pole is the other point where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface, in Antarctica. Earth rotates once in about 24 hours with respect to the Sun, but once every 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds with respect to other distant stars (#Stellar and sidereal day, see below). Earth's rotation is slowing slightly with time; thus, a day was shorter in the past. This is due to the tida ...
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Prototype
A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototype is generally used to evaluate a new design to enhance precision by system analysts and users. Prototyping serves to provide specifications for a real, working system rather than a theoretical one. In some design workflow models, creating a prototype (a process sometimes called materialization) is the step between the Formal specification, formalization and the evaluation of an idea. A prototype can also mean a typical example of something such as in the use of the derivation 'prototypical'. This is a useful term in identifying objects, behaviours and concepts which are considered the accepted norm and is analogous with terms such as stereotypes and archetypes. The word ''wikt:prototype, prototype'' derives from the Greek language, Greek ...
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Gyroscope
A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος ''gŷros'', "round" and σκοπέω ''skopéō'', "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in which the axis of rotation (spin axis) is free to assume any orientation by itself. When rotating, the orientation of this axis is unaffected by tilting or rotation of the mounting, according to the conservation of angular momentum. Gyroscopes based on other operating principles also exist, such as the microchip-packaged MEMS gyroscopes found in electronic devices (sometimes called gyrometers), solid-state ring lasers, fibre optic gyroscopes, and the extremely sensitive quantum gyroscope. Applications of gyroscopes include inertial navigation systems, such as in the Hubble Space Telescope, or inside the steel hull of a submerged submarine. Due to their precision, gyroscopes are also used in gyrotheodolites to maintain direction in tunnel mining. Gyroscopes ca ...
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Paul-Gustave Froment
Paul-Gustave Froment (born March 3, 1815 in Paris, died 1865) was a French mechanic, instrument maker and inventor. Life He was born in Paris and was educated at the Collège Sainte-Barbe and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. Having demonstrated from childhood talent for technology, his father decided to let him study at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. He later moved to Britain to continue his studies in Manchester. He was also one of the earliest photographers, working with the Direct Positive Process. On his return to France, his intention was to build steam engines but he was prevented from doing so by lack of funds. Instead, he opened a Paris workshop in 1844 where, among other things, he worked on a telegraph with written and keyboard signals, improved Gaetan Bonelli's electric loom, and helped William Hughes improve his early typewriter. He also worked on the gyroscope with Léon Foucault, for whom he also made the pendulum for his famous demonstration in 1851. In 1854 h ...
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Gyroscopes
A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος ''gŷros'', "round" and σκοπέω ''skopéō'', "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in which the axis of rotation (spin axis) is free to assume any orientation by itself. When rotating, the orientation of this axis is unaffected by tilting or rotation of the mounting, according to the conservation of angular momentum In physics, angular momentum (rarely, moment of momentum or rotational momentum) is the rotational analog of linear momentum. It is an important physical quantity because it is a conserved quantity—the total angular momentum of a closed system .... Gyroscopes based on other operating principles also exist, such as the microchip-packaged Vibrating structure gyroscope#MEMS gyroscopes, MEMS gyroscopes found in electronic devices (sometimes called gyrometers), solid-state ring laser gyroscope, ring lasers, fibre optic gyroscopes, an ...
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Physics Experiments
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through Spacetime, space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which relates to the order of nature, or, in other words, to the regular succession of events." Physics is one of the most fundamental science, scientific disciplines, with its main goal being to understand how the universe behaves. "Physics is one of the most fundamental of the sciences. Scientists of all disciplines use the ideas of physics, including chemists who study the structure of molecules, paleontologists who try to reconstruct how dinosaurs walked, and climatologists who study how human activities affect the atmosphere and oceans. Physics is also the foundation of all engineering and technology. No engineer could design a flat-screen TV, an interplanetary spacecraft, or even a better mousetrap without first und ...
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