Description

In 1671 the french astronomer Richer travelled from Paris (latitude φ = 48.8°) to Cayenne (latitude φ = 4.9°) in French-Guyana. In Cayenne he observed that his pendulum clock, which he carried with him, showed a delay of about 2 min/day. He explained this effect by the smaller gravitational acceleration and force in Cayenne. Nowadays we know more about the origin of this effect: the flattening and rotation of the Earth causes the dependency of the Earths acceleration g from the latitude φ. One can understand this in more detail in the theoretical part of the website. We positioned five real pendula at different places in the northern hemisphere, which can be controlled via internet. An experimentator can measure g(φ) with our Remotely Controlled Laboratory "World Pendulum" with sufficient accuracy and without traveling like Richer.

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