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arXiv · 2501.11943

History and presentation of the Cavendish experiment in textbooks in the 20th century

Jonas R Persson
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Abstract

The experiment performed by Henry Cavendish to measure the density of the earth, is in numerous textbooks described as a measurement of the universal gravitational constant, G, even if we know that this was not true. In this paper, a study on how common this "myth" is based on the checklist developed by Leite on a total of 84 textbooks. The prevalence of the myth in most textbooks throughout the 20th century indicates a focus on the contemporary interests of authors and the physics community in presenting the development of physics. An explanation of the prevalence of the myth and a different approach

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Jonas R Persson. 2025-01-21. History and presentation of the Cavendish experiment in textbooks in the 20th century. https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.11943

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