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France 1Bruno Bugada (18)
A Quick Measurement of the Universal Gravitational Constant Henry Cavendish, the English physicist and chemist is popularly known as the man who "weighed the earth" after his pioneering work of 1797 and 1798 when he measured the density and mass of our planet. By a method now known as the Cavendish experiment he was able to measure the force of gravitational attraction between pairs of lead spheres. This thus allowed the first calculation of the value of the gravitational constant, G: the number expressing the proportionality between the attractive force exerted by two objects and the ratio of the product of their masses to the square of the distance between them (Newton's law of universal gravitation). Inspired by the work of this 18th century figure, Bruno, wanted to measure approximately the Universal Gravitational Constant in less than a whole minute. His mechanism, which he adds could be improved because it does not include any system to stop the vibrations, was set on the floor and in his case used a nylon fibre axle. He used it not only to measure G, but also to demonstrate the change of the gravity centre's medium position of the mobile masses, as the external masses are brought closer. Its reaction time is considerably lower than ten seconds for the time being. |
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