Eötvös experiment

The Eötvös experiment was a famous physics experiment that measured the correlation between inertial mass and gravitational mass, demonstrating that the two were one and the same, something that had long been suspected but never demonstrated with the same accuracy. The earliest experiments were done by Isaac Newton (1642–1727) and improved upon by Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1784–1846). A much more accurate experiment using a torsion balance was carried out by Loránd Eötvös starting around 1885, with further improvements in a lengthy run between 1906 and 1909. Eötvös's team followed this with a series of similar but more accurate experiments, as well as experiments with different types of materials and in different locations around the Earth, all of which demonstrated the same equivalence in mass. In turn, these experiments led to the modern understanding of the equivalence principle encoded in general relativity, which states that the gravitational and inertial masses are the same.

It is sufficient for the inertial mass to be proportional to the gravitational mass. Any multiplicative constant will be absorbed in the definition of the unit of force.

Eötvös' original experimental device consisted of two masses on opposite ends of a rod, hung from a thin fiber. A mirror attached to the rod, or fiber, reflected light into a small telescope. Even tiny changes in the rotation of the rod would cause the light beam to be deflected, which would in turn cause a noticeable change when magnified by the telescope.

As seen from the Earth's frame of reference (or "lab frame", which is not an inertial frame of reference), the primary forces acting on the balanced masses are the string tension, gravity, and the centrifugal force due to the rotation of the Earth. Gravity is calculated by Newton's law of universal gravitation, which depends on gravitational mass. The centrifugal force is calculated by Newton's laws of motion and depends on inertial mass.

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