Cavendish Experiment

First laboratory measurement of the gravitational attraction between masses, weighing the Earth.

Core Principles & Analysis

• Henry Cavendish used a torsion balance with lead spheres suspended from a thin wire.
• His result gave Earth's density as 5.45 times that of water, within about one percent of the modern value.
• Later physicists used his data to derive the gravitational constant G.

Specifications & Metrics

• YEAR: 1798