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The simple pendulum can be used to determine the acceleration due to gravity.
The pendulum swings both ways. Pendulum exercises are used to increase your ROM after shoulder surgery.
Pendulum
Pendulums have been used for thousands of years as a time keeping device in various civilizations. Assuming that it is only displaced by a small angle, a pendulum wall have a period of 2pi*√(L/g) where L is the length of the pendulum and g is the acceeleration due to gravity, normally 9.81m/s². One of the cool things about pendulums is that if one is made with a length of one meter, it will have a period of 2.00607 seconds, meaning it will take just slightly more than one second to swing from one side to another.
A Foucault pendulum is a pendulum with a large length which is free to oscillate in any vertical plane. At the equator, the plane of oscillation remains fixed relative to the earth. Elsewhere, the plane of oscillation rotates, at a speed that is related to the latitude of the location. In Paris, where Foucault's pendulum is located, the plane of the pendulum's oscillation moves at approx 11 degrees per hour. This movement can be used to tell the time.