Ten fun facts about Leon Foucault

Fact 1
Though he did not create the gyroscope, he is credited for naming it.

Fact 2
He has an asteroid named after him, called the 5668 Foucault.

Fact 3
He tried studying medicine, but when he realized he had a fear of blood, he turned to physics.

Fact 4
The Foucault Pendulum was the name of the pendulum he used in the experiment that proved the Earth did rotate.

Fact 5
His experiment in 1850 helped provide further proof of Newton's corpuscular theory of light, or that light travels slower through water than air.

Fact 6
In 1864, he became a member of the Royal Society of London.

Fact 7
Another experiment he conducted, showed that by using a thin film of silver on the glass of a telescope, you could view the sun.

Fact 8
He was the first person to correctly define the speed of light in 1862.

Fact 9
In 1855, he became a physicist to the Imperial Observatory, where he made improvements on telescopes.

Fact 10
When he was 9, his father passed away and he was raised by his mother.

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