Eötvös experiment (equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass)
Experimento de Eötvös (equivalencia de masa inercial y gravitatoria)
- Date
- 1889-1909 · confidence medium
- Place
- Budapest, Hungary
- Credited to
- Loránd Eötvös, Dezső Pekár and Jenő Fekete
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
With the torsion balance Eötvös showed that inertial and gravitational mass coincide to a few parts in 10^9 for bodies of different composition. Until then the principle had never been tested so precisely.
The first series date from 1889-1890; the definitive ones, with Pekár and Fekete, from 1906-1909 and were published in 1922, after Eötvös's death.
What it led to
- the experimental foundation of Einstein's equivalence principle
- the 1980s search for a 'fifth force'
- modern tests of the equivalence principle (satellite experiments)