NIST Reports New Big G Value After Decade-Long Torsion-Balance Study
The decade-long NIST study found a value 0.0235% below the result it tried to replicate and at odds with CODATA recommendations.
- On April 16, 2026, National Institute of Standards and Technology researchers led by physicist Stephan Schlamminger published a new gravitational constant measurement in Metrologia that conflicts with prior CODATA recommendations.
- Utilizing a torsion balance and blinded analysis to eliminate experimenter bias, the decade-long study launched in 2016 identified previously overlooked systematic effects including tri-lobed mass shapes and gas-pressure torques.
- Schlamminger's team reported G = 6.67387×10^-11 with a 0.0057% uncertainty, a value 0.0235% lower than the replicated BIPM experiment and highlighting persistent scatter in Big G measurements.
- Metrologists must reassess published precisions and formalize broader uncertainty accounting, likely prompting revisions to CODATA guidance and calibration protocols worldwide affecting precision-experiment researchers.
- Scientists view the effort as a critical opportunity to improve instrumentation and refine best practices, as Schlamminger noted that "precision metrology is not merely about converging on a number, it is about the rigorous exposure of unknowns.
39 Articles
39 Articles
By Katie Hunt, CNN. Scientists have announced the results of a decade-long quest to measure Newton's gravitational constant, the force that keeps our feet on the ground and planets in orbit. The endeavor was, for the most part, a failure. The most ambitious effort to date to determine this fundamental constant, which defines the strength of the attraction between any two masses anywhere in the universe, yielded a value that doesn't match previou…
Scientists question gravity constant after new measurements
A major international experiment aimed at measuring Newton’s gravitational constant has produced results that conflict with previous calculations, reopening debate around one of physics’ most difficult fundamental constants. After nearly a decade of research, scientists obtained a new value for the gravitational constant “Big G” that differs from earlier measurements and from the reference values […] The post Scientists question gravity constant…
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