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The gravitational constant is an empirical physical constant involved in the calculation of gravitational effects in Sir Isaac Newton's law of universal gravitation and in Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. It is also known as the universal gravitational constant, the Newtonian constant of gravitation, or the Cavendish ...
The constants listed here are known values of physical constants expressed in SI units; that is, physical quantities that are generally believed to be universal in nature and thus are independent of the unit system in which they are measured. Many of these are redundant, in the sense that they obey a known relationship with other physical ...
where F is the gravitational force acting between two objects, m 1 and m 2 are the masses of the objects, r is the distance between the centers of their masses, and G is the gravitational constant. The first test of Newton's law of gravitation between masses in the laboratory was the Cavendish experiment conducted by the British scientist Henry ...
What is the gravitational constant, how do scientists measure it, and is it really constant or can it change across time and space?
The standard gravitational parameter μ of a celestial body is the product of the gravitational constant G and the mass M of that body. For two bodies, the parameter may be expressed as G ( m 1 + m 2 ) , or as GM when one body is much larger than the other: μ = G ( M + m ) ≈ G M . {\displaystyle \mu =G(M+m)\approx GM.}
For the fine-structure constant, this upper bound is comparatively low, at roughly 10 −17 per year (as of 2008). [6] The gravitational constant is much more difficult to measure with precision, and conflicting measurements in the 2000s have inspired the controversial suggestions of a periodic variation of its value in a 2015 paper. [7]
The four universal constants that, by definition, have a numeric value 1 when expressed in these units are: c, the speed of light in vacuum, G, the gravitational constant, ħ, the reduced Planck constant, and; k B, the Boltzmann constant.
A conventional standard value is defined exactly as 9.80665 m/s² (about 32.1740 ft/s²). Locations of significant variation from this value are known as gravity anomalies. This does not take into account other effects, such as buoyancy or drag.