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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, COSI - AT 30, MUSEUM HAS EARNED REPUTATION AS A SCIENTIFIC PIONEER

Columbus Dispatch, The (OH) - Sunday, April 3, 1994

Author: Michael B. Lafferty, Dispatch Science Reporter

For three decades, Ohio's Center of Science and Industry has been bending minds - while the world turns.

The Foucault Pendulum is the proof.

The exhibit demonstrates Earth's rotation: A huge, stainless-steel ball suspended from COSI's lobby ceiling moves slowly back and forth, knocking down a circle of pegs on the floor. While the ball swings in the same plane, Earth rotates beneath. Visitors think they're seeing the pendulum move; in reality, they're moving with Earth.

The concept sprang from the imagination of French scientist Jean Foucault, who designed the experiment in 1851.

The pendulum, a gift from The Dispatch, is the only exhibit that has remained unchanged since COSI opened on Easter Sunday (March 29) in 1964. Staff members celebrated the center's 30th anniversary Tuesday with a ceremony on the exhibit floor.

COSI was the dream of Sandy Halleck, its founding director.