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A swinging weight showed Earth was rotating

HERE’S THE INTERESTING PART

Before this grand demonstration, everyone just blindly accepted planetary rotation without seeing it happen locally. Leon Foucault hung a massive brass weight from a ceiling and let it swing, forcing crowds to watch the path subtly shift as the ground moved underneath. It was a brilliantly passive-aggressive way to physically prove celestial mechanics to stubborn skeptics.

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A swinging weight showed Earth was rotating
STACKY / Science
Topics in this factphysicsfoucaultastronomy
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