Allais effect

Not to be confused with the Allais paradox in economics, which is also sometimes referred to as the "Allais effect".
Allais' paraconical pendulum
Photo taken during the French 1999 eclipse

The Allais effect is the alleged anomalous behavior of pendulums or gravimeters which is sometimes purportedly observed during a solar eclipse. The effect was first reported as an anomalous precession of the plane of oscillation of a Foucault pendulum during the solar eclipse of June 30, 1954 by Maurice Allais, a French polymath who later won the Nobel Prize in Economics.[1] Allais reported another observation of the effect during the solar eclipse of October 2, 1959 using the paraconical pendulum he invented.[2][3] This study earned him the 1959 Galabert Prize of the French Astronautical Society and made him a laureate of the U.S. Gravity Research Foundation for his 1959 memoir on gravity.[4] The veracity of the Allais effect remains controversial among the scientific community, as its testing has frequently met with inconsistent or ambiguous results over more than five decades of observation.

  1. ^ Hecht, Laurence (24 October 2010). "In Appreciation of Maurice Allais (1911-2010) The New Physical Field of Maurice Allais" (PDF). 21st Century Science & Technology. pp. 26–30.
  2. ^ Allais, M. (September 1959). "Should the Laws of Gravitation Be reconsidered? Part I – Abnormalities in the Motion of a Paraconical Pendulum on an Anisotropic Support" (PDF). Aero/Space Engineering: 46–52. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-07-20.
  3. ^ Allais, M. (October 1959). "Should the Laws of Gravitation Be reconsidered? Part II – Experiments in Connection with the Abnormalities Noted in the Motion of the Paraconical Pendulum With an Anisotropic Support" (PDF). Aero/Space Engineering: 51–55. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-06-22.
  4. ^ Allais, Maurice (1959). New theoretical and experimental research work on gravity. Memoir (Report).