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The Cavendish experiment, performed in 1797–1798 by English scientist Henry Cavendish, ... Cavendish found that the Earth's density was 5.448 ...
Cavendish found that the Earth's average density is 5.48 times greater than that of water. John Henry Poynting later noted that the data should have led to a value of 5.448, [ 18 ] and indeed that is the average value of the twenty-nine determinations Cavendish included in his paper. [ 19 ]
From this it follows that the average density of Earth is approximately 1.8 times the density of the mountain. [ 15 ] [ 18 ] [ 19 ] Hutton took a density of 2,500 kg·m −3 for Schiehallion, and announced that the density of the Earth was 1.8 times this, or 4,500 kg·m −3 , [ 18 ] less than 20% away from the modern value of 5,515 kg·m −3 .
Experimental setup by Francis Baily and Henry Foster to determine the density of Earth using the Cavendish method. While the mass of the Earth is implied by stating the Earth's radius and density, it was not usual to state the absolute mass explicitly prior to the introduction of scientific notation using powers of 10 in the later 19th century ...
Henry Cavendish found that the Earth's density was 5.448 ± 0.033 times that of water. As of 2009, the Earth's mass in kilograms is only known to around five digits of accuracy, whereas its gravitational mass is known to over nine significant figures. [clarification needed]
1798 – Henry Cavendish tests Newton's law of universal gravitation using a torsion balance, leading to the first accurate value for the gravitational constant and the mean density of the Earth. [22] [23]
In 1797, Henry Cavendish calculated the average density of the Earth to be 5.48 times the density of water (later refined to 5.53), which led to the accepted belief that the Earth was much denser in its interior. [7]
1774 – Charles Mason: Conducts an experiment near the Scottish mountain of Schiehallion that attempts to measure the mean density of the Earth for the first time. Known as the Schiehallion experiment. 1796 – Edward Jenner: tests the first vaccine. 1798 – Henry Cavendish: Torsion bar experiment to measure Newton's gravitational constant.