Determination of the Newtonian gravitational constantGwith a nonlinear fitting method

Abstract

The Newtonian gravitational constant G is determined by means of a high-Q torsion pendulum and the time-of-swing method, in which the period of the pendulum is altered by the presence of two 6.25-kg stainless steel cylinders. The nonlinear fitting method is used to extract the frequencies from the angle-time data of the pendulum. The resulting value of G is $(6.6699\mathrm{}\pm 0.0007)\times {10}^{-11}{\mathrm{m}}^3{\mathrm{}\mathrm{kg}}^{\mathrm{-}1}{\mathrm{}\mathrm{s}}^{\mathrm{-}2}.$