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EXPERIMENT

Fortune-Telling with a Pendulum?

Tie a weight to a ten-inch string and let the weight hang freely in front of you. Hold the end of the string as steady as possible. Pretend that a circular motion of the pendulum means "yes" and a back-and-forth motion means "no." Now ask the pendulum some questions. For instance, "My name is so-and-so", "Will I be going to school tomorrow?", "Does so-and-so like me?" Was the pendulum right? Accurate readings may be explained by small, undetectable muscle tension. The motion of the pendulum magnifies this tension and because we may have already decided what answer we'd like to see for our question, we may be unconsciously affecting the pendulum's movement. Numerous trials show that the circular motion we're pretending means "yes" happens more than the back-to-front motion. Could it be that the muscular response creating the circular motion comes more easily to us than the back-to-front? Check to see if this claim is accurate.

(click on each heading above for fun & experiments for each sense)