Google Doodle celebrates the life of French scientist Léon Foucault

Doodle: the Focault pendulum confirmed the earth's rotation in 1851

Updated: 09:07, 18 September 2013

Google Doodle is celebrating the 194th birthday of French physicist Léon Foucault with a new interactive graphic.

The Google Doodle shows Focault's creation in action: a pendulum knocking down pegs as it swings.

Foucalt, whose pendulum confirmed the earth's rotation in 1851, was born in Paris in 1819.

His simple device demonstrated the how the Earth spins on its axis by showing rotation of the plane of oscillation of a long and heavy pendulum suspended from the roof of the Panthéon in Paris.

The experiment was a revelation, with the pendulum being shipped around the world

Born in Paris in 1819, Foucalt initially studied medicine but soon changed to physics. Early in his schooling he became enthused with the science of photography while also becoming an assistant to a bacteriologist.

In the previous year, Focault teamed up with fellow French physicist Hippolyte Fizeau to measure the speed of light in different scenarios.

Between them they discovered that light was slower in water and, in doing so, disproved Newton's corpuscle theory of light.

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