The Foucault experiment

The University and BBC reconstruct the famous Foucault experiment, which proved the Earth goes around the Sun, by hanging a brass ball 300ft from the roof of St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

The photograph shows the OU’s Dean of Science Mike Pentz and Canon Collins of St Paul’s Cathedral. It was taken during the filming of The Open University programme S101/01 ‘The Planet Earth: A Scientific Model’. S101 was the follow-up to the first Science Foundation Course (S100) and was presented from 1979 to 1987.

As well as the printed materials sent to students through the post, the course had over 30 television programmes and over 15 audio programmes. Students were also sent a home experiment kit (HEK) containing all the equipment required to undertake experiments at home.