McKinley Museum Foucault Pendulum - Canton, Ohio
N 40° 48.374 W 081° 23.580
17T E 466851 N 4517322
Foucault Pendulum inside the William McKinley Museum in Canton, Ohio
Waymark Code: WM8YTK
Location: Ohio, United States
Date Posted: 06/01/2010
Views: 15
This pendulum consists of a hollow steel sphere filled with lead pellets with a total weight of about 110 pounds, supported by a stainless steel wire 30 feet long and one-tenth inch thick. It would come to a stop in an hour or so due largely to air resistance but its swing is maintained by an electromagnet drive system at the top, which does not affect direction.
The plane rotation would be once in 24 hours at the North Pole but there would be no plane rotation at the equator since the equatorial plane does not change. At our latitude of about 40 degrees, the earth makes a complete turn in 36 hours, or 10 degrees per hour. Each complete swing requires about 6 seconds or 10 swings per minute.
One hundred twenty pegs are spaced equidistant around the circumference of the compass rose at the beginning of each day, and two of them are knocked down every 8-10 minutes. Each time a peg is knocked down, very soon a peg exactly opposite will also be knocked down, depending on how precisely the pegs are placed.
The nearby sign locates this pendulum at N40° 47' 50" W81° 22' 34' which is at the Carnegie Bldg at Cleveland Ave SW and 3rd St SW in downtown Canton.
Weight of the ball: 110
Length: 30
Material: steel
Period of oscillation: 6
Rotation time: 36
Hours of Operation: From: 1:00 PM To: 4:00 PM
Admission Cost: 7.00 (listed in local currency)
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