The Foucault Pendulum Precession and the Additivity of Infinitesimal Rotations

TL;DR

This paper offers an intuitive, interdisciplinary explanation of the Foucault pendulum precession by leveraging the additivity of infinitesimal rotations, making the concept accessible to non-specialists.

Contribution

It introduces a simplified, physical and astronomical approach to understanding Foucault precession, emphasizing the additivity of infinitesimal rotations for educational purposes.

Findings

Simplified explanation of Foucault precession

Use of infinitesimal rotation additivity in explanation

Accessible interdisciplinary approach for non-specialists

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to give an intuitive explanation of the Foucault pendulum precession (Fpp) by exploiting the easily proved result that infinitesimal spatial rotations about different axes in three dimensions are additive. This allows to explain in a simpler way the Foucault precession by combining physical laws, intuition and a few elementary notions of astronomy. The paper is by no means intended to replace the material given in standard texts of classical mechanics; it is only an interdisciplinary description of the Foucault precession tailored for non specialists.