Local Community
Foucault’s Pendulum is a magnificent scientific proof of the earth’s rotation and St Peter’s has a tower tall enough to repeat his experiment. We believe God made a physical universe that can be scientifically investigated and tested. The discoveries that are still being made at the cosmic and microscopic levels give further evidence of a powerful and awesome Creator God. I’m delighted that Christians and churches like St Peters continue to celebrate not just the creativity God’s given us in music and art, but also the intellectual curiosity to understand the material world he’s put us in. Do come and visit us!
The Rector of St Peter’s Waverton, Revd Jules Beauchamp
THE WAVERTON PENDULUM continued
In the 1615 Galileo pronounced that ‘God had given two books to mankind, the first the Bible, the second the book of nature. Whereas the first was to read and study the second was to reveal the full glory of creation by the use of our senses in the pursuit of science.’
Extract from’ Gods in the Sky’ by Allan Chapman, Wadham College Oxford.
The Waverton pendulum experiment is a re-visitation of Foucault's mid 19th. century pendulum demonstration. It differs in that we now have much more sophisticated ways of identifying the pendulum’s position. Early pendulums had a metal pointer which dragged in sand to leave a track or a system of pegs which were knocked over, the Waverton pendulum supports a laser pointer projecting a spot of light the position of which can be recorded then electronically measured. Currently it can be placed to within 5 thousandths of an inch on the divided floor scale which equates to an angle of 45 seconds of arc around a four foot divided circle.
With the set-up Foucault had in 1851 in Paris the rotation of the Earth was clearly shown by the plane in which the pendulum swings appearing to rotate or precess around its central rest position. This still remains the only way of showing that it is the Earth rotating and not the Sun going round the Earth. This was a most important issue in Galileo’s time.
The pendulum precesses because once swinging it will continue in the swing plane direction it started in relative to free space, or the stars, and the Earth revolves underneath it.
The first runs of this experiment started in September 2009 and produced some strange results, however faults have been rectified and the Earth does not now appear to rotate backwards as well as forwards, however there are still improvements to be made.
Once these improvements are sorted out other influences which exist, albeit tiny, can be investigated.
This is where we are up to at the time of writing; there are swinging sessions ongoing, at which associated equipment will be under test, anyone interested will be most welcome. For more information contact the wardens or phone Chester 335254.