A Kater’s pendulum is a commonly available setup. Measuring the local gravitational acceleration (‘g’) using Kater’s pendulum is a common undergraduate experiment. Gaining about 5 to 6 significant figures on the value of ‘g’ is not difficult. This can be further improved if an error co-related pair of pendulums is used. Further, if the pendulums are placed on opposite sides of the Earth, one could also distinguish the extra-terrestrial sources of variation of ‘g’.

One source of extra-terrestrial source of variation of ‘g’ is revolving moon. So we setup 2 pendulums on the opposite sides of the Earth. This was just a curious experiment we wanted to try out and try to push the boundaries of the value of ‘g’ that can be obtained by the Kater’s pendulum. In collaboration with VTU-CMR Institute of Technology where the other pendulum is placed, we hope to have enough data by mid – 2013.