Social Studies

Gyroscope

I will research the creator of the gyroscope, who is Jean Bernard Leon Foucault, a French Physicist. I will find the other contributions this man has made in history. I will also look for other inventions this physicist has made as well.

Leon Foucault was born on September 18, 1819. When in school Foucault studied medicine, but left that profession to study physics instead. He is best known for his demonstration of the Foucault pendulum which was a device that demonstrated the effect of the Earth's rotation. This device is similar to the gyroscope.

Foucault also did experiments to measure the speed of light. It is known as the Foucault- Fizeau experiment. He did this experiment to once again prove Newton's corpuscular theory of light which is the experiment that shows that light travels slower in water than through air. Once the revolving mirror was made Foucault, in 1862, determined that the speed of light was in fact 298,000 km/s, which was 10,000 less that the previous experiments done to determine the speed of light.

In September of 1855, Foucault discovered that the force needed for the rotation of a copper disk increases when the disk is made to rotate with its rim between poles of a magnet, and at the same time the disk becomes heated by the eddy current that is in the metal. Another thing he has done is the Foucault Test, which is still used to this day. This test enables the tester to validate the real shape of the mirror, and this helps gain the best results from the equipment..

Overall Foucault has provided lots of ideas that has benefited the world a lot. Even to this day some of his ideas are still used. The scientific world would be very different if it wasn't for Jean Bernard Leon Foucault.