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The Eötvös experiment was a famous physics experiment that measured the correlation between inertial mass and gravitational mass, demonstrating that the two were one and the same, something that had long been suspected but never demonstrated with the same accuracy. The earliest experiments were done by Isaac Newton (1642–1727) and improved upon by Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1784–1846). A much more accurate experiment using a torsion balance was carried out by Loránd Eötvös starting around 1885, with further improvements in a lengthy run between 1906 and 1909. Eötvös's team followed this with a series of similar but more accurate experiments, as well as experiments with different types of materials and in different locations around the Earth, all of which demonstrated the same equivalence in mass. In turn, these experiments led to the modern understanding of the equivalence principle encoded in general relativity, which states that the gravitational and inertial masses are the same. It is sufficient for the inertial mass to be proportional to the gravitational mass. Any multiplicative constant will be absorbed in the definition of the unit of force. ==Eötvös' original experiment== Eötvös' original experimental device consisted of two masses on opposite ends of a rod, hung from a thin fiber. A mirror attached to the rod, or fiber, reflected light into a small telescope. Even tiny changes in the rotation of the rod would cause the light beam to be deflected, which would in turn cause a noticeable change when magnified by the telescope. As seen from the Earth's frame of reference (or "lab frame", which is not an inertial frame of reference), the primary forces acting on the balanced masses are the string tension, gravity, and the centrifugal force due to the rotation of the Earth. Gravity is calculated by Newton's law of universal gravitation, which depends on gravitational mass. The centrifugal force is calculated by Newton's laws of motion and depends on inertial mass. The experiment was arranged so that if the two types of masses were different, the two forces will not act in exactly the same way on the two bodies, and over time the rod will rotate. As seen from the rotating "lab frame", the string tension plus the (much smaller) centrifugal force cancels the weight (as vectors), while as seen from any inertial frame the (vector) sum of the weight and the tension makes the object rotate along with the earth. For the rod to be at rest in lab frame, the reactions, on the rod, of the tensions acting on each body, must create a zero net torque (the only degree of freedom is rotation on the horizontal plane). Supposing that the system were constantly at rest – this meaning mechanical equilibrium (i.e. net forces and torques zero) – with the two bodies thus hanging also at rest, but having ''different'' centrifugal forces upon them and consequently exerting different torques on the rod through the reactions of the tensions, the rod then would spontaneously rotate, in contradiction with our assumption that the system is at rest. So the system cannot exist in this state; any difference between the centrifugal forces on the two bodies will set the rod in rotation. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Eötvös experiment」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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