Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The linear oscillator driven by thermal noise and with electrical damping
- 3 External sources of noise and design of experiments
- 4 The weak principle of equivalence
- 5 Verification of the weak principle of equivalence for free particles
- 6 Newtonian attractions of extended bodies
- 7 Experimental tests of the inverse square law
- 8 The constant of gravitation
- 9 Conclusion
- References
- Index
9 - Conclusion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The linear oscillator driven by thermal noise and with electrical damping
- 3 External sources of noise and design of experiments
- 4 The weak principle of equivalence
- 5 Verification of the weak principle of equivalence for free particles
- 6 Newtonian attractions of extended bodies
- 7 Experimental tests of the inverse square law
- 8 The constant of gravitation
- 9 Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
We have not dealt in this book with all possible experiments on gravitation that have been or could be carried out in the laboratory, whether on the ground or in a space vehicle, but have concentrated on those on which most work has been done and from which most results have been obtained. That is because we have been concerned more with questions of experimental design and technique rather than with the bearing of the results on theories of gravitation. Something was said of that in the Introduction and we simply call attention again to recent reviews such as those of Cook (1987b), Will (1987) and others in the Newton Tercentary review of Hawking & Israel (1987). We have restricted our accounts to the weak principle of equivalence, the inverse square law and the measurement of the constant of gravitation partly because in numbers of results they dominate the subject, but more importantly because, having been so frequently and thoroughly studied, it seems that all the significant issues of experimental method and design are brought out when they are considered.
It was observed in the conclusion of the last chapter on the constant of gravitation, that the definition and calculation of the entire attraction upon a detector such as a torsion balance is no simple matter, and that applies equally to experiments on the inverse square law, as may be shown by the details of the calculations that were necessary in the experiments of Chen et al., (1984).
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- Chapter
- Information
- Gravitational Experiments in the Laboratory , pp. 252 - 255Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993