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Danielle Burke

Dr. Ling

Physics Honors

6 November 2016

Henry Cavendish

Henry Cavendish was known to be one of the greatest experimental and theoretical

British chemists and physicists of his time. He was born on October 10th, 1731, in Nice, France

and died in London, England, on February 24th, 1810. His father was Lord Charles Cavendish

and his mother was Lady Ann Grey. His mother was very sick and two years after Cavendish

was born, his mother died in 1733. This was shortly after giving birth to her second son,

Frederick. This meant leaving Cavendishs father alone to raise his brother and himself. Henry

Cavendish was born into an upper class family and went to a private school near London called

Hackney Academy at age 11, which was a school for children who were mainly upper class. In

1748, he went to Peterhouse College, Cambridge. However, three years later he left the school

with no degree. Afterwards, he went on to live with his father in Great

Marlborough Street, London, where he would eventually have his own

laboratory that he built himself along with a workshop. His father served

in politics and in science throughout his life. He was involved in the

Royal Society of London, a national organization located in Britain that

promoted scientific research. Cavendishs father took him to the Royal

Society meetings in 1758 and to dinners of the Royal Society Club. He

was eventually elected to both of these groups, and throughout his life he participated in
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scientific organizations. When the Royal Institution of Great Britain was initiated, Cavendish

became the manager in 1800, where he was active in the laboratory and he helped Humphry

Davy with chemical experiments. After the death of his father in 1783, Cavendish moved his

laboratory to Clapham Common and also went on to live there. His career mainly consisted of

scientific pursuits and he showed no interest in anything but science. Cavendish was very shy

and avoided society whenever he could throughout his life and did not have any personal

relationships outside of his family. Therefore, he never married or went on to have kids. Due to

his shyness and isolation from society, he did not print much of his work and discoveries. He

wrote no books and wrote fewer than twenty articles in his career. Even his printed work did not

give a complete idea of his great accomplishments and success in science. Overall, Henry

Cavendish was born into an upper class family, and left university with no degree, but became

one of the greatest experimental and theoretical British chemists and physicists of his time.

In addition, Henry Cavendish made a huge contribution to physics when he did an

experiment to weigh the earth and when he discovered the value of G, or the universal

gravitation constant, in 1798 using a torsion balance. Before this, the value of G in Isaac

Newtons law of universal gravitation was not experimentally determined. In Cavendishs

experiment to determine G, he used a rigid rod that was approximately 2 feet long and was very

light. In the article, Cavendish and the Value of G, the

author explained how the experiment was done in which the

author writes, Two small lead spheres were attached to the

ends of the rod and the rod was suspended by a thin wire.

When the rod becomes twisted, the torsion of the wire

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begins to exert a torsional force that is proportional to the angle of rotation of the rod. The more

twist of the wire, the more the system pushes backwards to restore itself towards the original

position (the Physics Classroom). With this, he determined the relationship between the angle

of rotation and the amount of torsional force. Afterwards, Cavendish placed two large spheres

near the two small spheres on the rod and the large spheres applied a gravitational force to the

smaller spheres and twisted the rod due to the fact that all masses attract. Eventually, the

torsional force balanced the gravitational force and the rods and spheres came to rest, allowing

Cavendish to to calculate the gravitational force attraction between the masses. This resulted in

the value 6.75 x 10-11 N m2/kg2 and today the value is 6.67259 x 10-11 N

m2/kg2. This means that Cavendishs measured density of the Earth is

within 1% of todays measured density. This experiment is now known to be the Cavendish

experiment. Another fascinating fact that was found from his experiment is that Cavendish was

able to eliminate every source of error and anything that could affect the experiment and he was

able to be very precise with his measurement even though the attraction was so small. He was

able to eliminate any source of error, such as air currents or temperature changes by placing the

apparatus in a wooden box which was all in a closed shed. Because of Cavendishs brilliance and

astonishing experiment, a physics laboratory in the University of Cambridge is named the

Cavendish Laboratory. Another benefit of Cavendish paying close attention to eliminate any

errors is that it lead many people to say that Cavendishs experiment was the first modern

physics experiment.

Before Henry Cavendishs experiment to find G, it was known that he had an interest in

the structure and composition of the interior of the earth. (Juliantrubin.com). Also, the original
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purpose of Cavendishs experiment was not actually to determine the gravitational constant,

rather his only goal was to measure the density of the Earth. In addition, with his interest, he

wrote a letter to his friend, Rev. John Mitchell, and wrote about the possibility of an experiment

to weigh the earth. Mitchell borrowed an idea from Coulomb, a french scientist that explored

the electrical force between charged metal spheres, and suggested to use a torsion balance in the

experiment. However, on the road to constructing the correct apparatus to measure G, Mitchell

died, leaving Cavendish to rebuild most of it.

In Cavendishs original experiment, the mass of the large ball was 158 kg, the radius of

the large ball was 30.5 cm, and the mass of the small ball was .73 kg. The distance between the

large balls was 1.86 m (73.3 in), the distance of the small balls was 1.86 m (73.3 in), and the

distance between the large and small balls was .225 m (8.85 in). However, in more recent

experiments, scientists have used different values to Cavendish.

Before the Cavendish experiment, scientists were not very interested in the value of G

because they were more interested in gravity than gravitation. However, after he determined the

mass and density of the Earth and published a paper in which he said these quantities, scientists

began to repeat the experiment and documented the value for G.

The most important dynamical study of Cavendish was his theory of heat. He agreed with

Newton that heat is a vibration of particles, however he went on further to say that heat is the

mechanical momentum of vibrating particles. The article, Cavendish, Harry, states,

Cavendish interpreted this to mean that the mechanical momentum lost by the particles of one

body equals that gained by the particles of the second. (Encyclopedia.com). Cavendish began

doing heat experiments and rediscovered the basic facts about specific heats and latent heats.
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One of his experiments included trying to find the specific heat of air by passing it through a tube

confined in hot water in which he measured the increase of heat in the air. Not only did he do

heat experiments, Cavendish was also famous for his production of gases, such as, hydrogen and

carbon dioxide, in the laboratory. He produced hydrogen by dissolving metals in acids, and he

produced carbon dioxide, in which he dissolved alkalis in acids. After doing this, he put the

gases in bottles that were upended over water/mercury and then he measured their solubility in

water and their specific gravity. With all of this information, he wrote and published, "Three

Papers Containing Experiments on Factitious Air" in 1766. (Notablebiographies.com). From

these papers, Cavendish was awarded the Royal Societys Copley Medal. Overall, Cavendish

contributed to chemistry with his theory of heat and his discovery of hydrogen.

In conclusion, Henry Cavendish was one of the greatest chemists and physicists of his

time. He made many important discoveries and performed many major experiments, that

scientists still benefit from today. One of his most important experiments includes the

Cavendish experiment in which he measured a value for G, or the universal gravitation

constant. He was also known for his discovery of hydrogen and his theory of heat. Before these

experiments, he was very involved in the science world and was part of the Royal Society Club,

due to his father being an active member of the club. His fathers interest in science is what

eventually led Cavendish to be so apart of the science world. Even though Henry Cavendish

made a huge impact on the science world, his influence couldve been even greater if he

published more of his works. Throughout his whole life, he published fewer than 20 articles and

wrote no books, but with the little he did publish, he still continues to influence the modern

science world. Not only did he publish very few of his works, he was also very isolated from
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society, resulting in not a lot of information able to be written about him. Overall, Henry

Cavendish was a British physicist and chemist, who was very isolated from society and did not

publish a lot of his works, but still continues to have a huge impact on the modern science world

with his incredible discoveries and experiments.

Works Cited

"Cavendish and the Value of G." Cavendish and the Value of G. Physics Classroom, n.d. Web.

06

Nov. 2016

"Cavendish Experiment to Measure Gravitational Constant." By Ron Kurtus. School for

Champions, n.d. Web. 06 Nov. 2016.

"Cavendish, Henry." Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. . Encyclopedia.com. 6 Nov.

2016

"Cavendish, Henry." Encyclopedia.com. HighBeam Research, n.d. Web. 06 Nov. 2016.

"Henry Cavendish Biography." Encyclopedia of World Biography, n.d. Web. 06 Nov. 2016

"Henry Cavendish Biography." N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Nov. 2016

"Henry Cavendish." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 06

Nov.

2016.

"Henry Cavendish." Henry Cavendish. Todayinsci, n.d. Web. 06 Nov. 2016.

"Henry Cavendish: Weighing the Earth." Julian Trubin, n.d. Web. 06 Nov. 2016.
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