Miss FWM was not aware that she was committing a breach of etiquette in writing anonymously to Mr. Faraday2, & she is sorry to have done so. What she intended to say was, not of course that the earth revolved round a table leg, but that the table partially released from the power of attraction might possibly show the movement of the earth on its axis much in the same way as a ball thrown up in the air; or as the pendulum experiment tried two or three years ago did3; especially as the table until influenced or hurried on by those around it invariably seems to go towards the west.
Miss FWM is however she confesses much too ignorant on these subjects to have interfered in them, & she regrets having done so. Mr. Faraday will she trusts excuse her still remaining unknown as it is disagreeable for a lady to make her name public under these circumstances[.]
FOUCAULT, Jean Bernard Léon (1851): “Démonstration physique du mouvement de rotation de la terre au moyen du pendule”, Comptes Rendus, 32: 135-8.
Please cite as “Faraday2688,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 29 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday2688