סמינר מחקר 29 במאי: Michael Hagner (ETH Zurich) - Foucault’s Pendulum in Paris

Michael Hagner

ETH Zurich

Foucault’s Pendulum in Paris

In 1851, when French physicist Léon Foucault demonstrated the rotation of the earth with his pendulum experiment, no one needed any further proof that Copernicus was correct. Nevertheless, Foucault’s pendulum is among the most famous experiments in the history of science. There are two questions that interest me in this context: How is it to be explained that Foucault, until then largely unknown and belonging to the academic precariat rather than to the Parisian scientific elite, developed this experiment? And why did this experiment become so popular within a few weeks after its first public performance? In my lecture, I will set the history of the pendulum in the context of political and aesthetic ideas that circulated in Paris during the years of the 1848 revolution. The experiment was closely linked to Foucault’s skillfulness as a precision tinkerer, and with its first public presentation, it became involved in controversial debates about the Parisian Pantheon as a "lieu de mémoire".

התכנסות לקפה וכיבוד קל בשעה 17:45 ליד חדר 496

יו"ר: שאול קציר

הציבור מוזמן