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Jean-Bernard-Léon Foucault
(18 Sep 1819 - 11 Feb 1868)
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Science Quotes by Jean-Bernard-Léon Foucault (2 quotes)
Artistic impression of Leon Foucault by A.I.
Science gains from it [the pendulum] more than one can expect. With its huge dimensions, the apparatus presents qualities that one would try in vain to communicate by constructing it on a small [scale], no matter how carefully. Already the regularity of its motion promises the most conclusive results. One collects numbers that, compared with the predictions of theory, permit one to appreciate how far the true pendulum approximates or differs from the abstract system called 'the simple pendulum'.
— Jean-Bernard-Léon Foucault
The observations, so numerous and so important, of the pendulum as object are especially relevant to the length of its oscillations. Those that I propose to make known to the [Paris] Academy [of Sciences] are principally addressed to the direction of the plane of its oscillation, which, moving gradually from east to west, provides evidence to the senses of the diurnal movement of the terrestrial globe.
— Jean-Bernard-Léon Foucault
Quotes by others about Jean-Bernard-Léon Foucault (1)
The velocity of light is one of the most important of the fundamental constants of Nature. Its measurement by Foucault and Fizeau gave as the result a speed greater in air than in water, thus deciding in favor of the undulatory and against the corpuscular theory. Again, the comparison of the electrostatic and the electromagnetic units gives as an experimental result a value remarkably close to the velocity of light–a result which justified Maxwell in concluding that light is the propagation of an electromagnetic disturbance. Finally, the principle of relativity gives the velocity of light a still greater importance, since one of its fundamental postulates is the constancy of this velocity under all possible conditions.
See also:
- 18 Sep - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Foucault's birth.
- Foucault’s Pendulum — Leon Foucault’s paper, 'Physical Demonstration of the Earth’s Motion of Rotation, by Means of the Pendulum' (1851).
- Pendulum: Leon Foucault and the Triumph of Science, by Amir D. Aczel. - book suggestion.