Details are given for the construction of a 70‐cm‐long Foucault pendulum to be mounted on the wall, and for a simple modification that will make it display local clock time. The possibility of having a Foucault pendulum of such short length is the result of finding new or improved ways of reducing four perturbing effects that become more severe as the length is decreased. They relate to: precession due to ellipticity in the motion, the drive system for maintaining the amplitude, the means of limiting the growth of ellipticity, and the method of gripping the suspending wire at the top. With those improvements, successful Foucault operation was attained in pendulums as short as 15 cm, support to center of bob. Following that severe test, the length for the ‘‘wall clock’’ was set at a conservative 70 cm. At that length it is highly reliable, and accurate to within 2% when timed for the full revolution. Uniformity in rate when comparing different intervals of azimuth is of course less. A simple method of making the pendulum read local time is described. Two clocks, one in the author’s office and one at home, have been in continuous operation for more than ten years.

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