Students recreate an 1851 experience to bring science to the public

Léon Foucault created his pendulum to demonstrate to the general public the rotation of the earth, back at a time when science was exclusive and apart from the rest of society. Foucault made his famous pendulum, a 28 kg brass-coated lead spherical mass, which hung from a 67 m long wire at the Panthéon in Paris.

For the course, the students therefore chose to recreate Foucault’s pendulum at EPFL using a 30 kg block of cement suspended 6 m from the top floor of the MED building with twine and connected with knots and carabiners, with masking tape and chalk to mark the axis and the movement. The idea is that the pendulum should continue in a straight line, so as the marks move throughout the day, people can see that this change is due to the Earth’s rotation.

For this project, the students decided to focus on the social aspect of science, the way in which social interactions shape the practice of science

The year-long “Experimental history of science” course is taught by Simon Dumas Primbault and Ion-Gabriel Mihailescu. For the first semester, students learn about general topics along with the historical scientific instruments and methods. In the second semester, the students choose a group project that they then construct.

Throughout the day, some people just passed by quickly to look, while others stopped and asked questions and learned about the physics and history of the project.

“I chose this course because I found it interesting to do more physical work in a class, whereas usually learning is done through essays and tests,” says Noé Tambourin, a student in the class. “It was nice to get to build an experience that took place a very long time ago.”