Diagram of torsion balance used in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish_experiment" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Cavendish experiment">Cavendish experiment</a> performed by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cavendish" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Henry Cavendish">Henry Cavendish</a> in 1798. It measured the force of gravity between masses M and m, yielding the value of the gravitational constant G. Labels: (M) mass of stationary lead balls, (m) mass of movable lead balls, (F) gravitational force between each pair of balls, (<span class="mwe-math-element"><span class="mwe-math-mathml-inline mwe-math-mathml-a11y" style="display: none;"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="{\displaystyle \theta }"><semantics><mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"><mstyle displaystyle="true" scriptlevel="0"><mi>θ<!-- θ --></mi></mstyle></mrow><annotation encoding="application/x-tex">{\displaystyle \theta }</annotation></semantics></math></span><img src="https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/6e5ab2664b422d53eb0c7df3b87e1360d75ad9af" class="mwe-math-fallback-image-inline" aria-hidden="true" style="vertical-align: -0.338ex; width:1.09ex; height:2.176ex;" alt="\theta "></span>) angle of deflection of balance from equilibrium position, (K) torsion spring coefficient, (r) distance between centers of balls when balance is deflected (L) length of balance beam between centers of small balls.
Chris Burks (<a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Chetvorno&amp;action=edit&amp;redlink=1" class="new" title="User:Chetvorno (page does not exist)">Chetvorno</a>)
2007-08-31
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