[Gazza711]

Cavendish, focault and schihallion experiments all used lead. Hmm mm.  Strange that. Why not use a non conductor? All use lead?

[GiantTurtle]

It is the most dense material that is commonly available.
Galileo used wood and other metals and found little change in the speed they fell.

[3DGeek]

Cavendish, focault and schihallion experiments all used lead. Hmm mm.  Strange that. Why not use a non conductor? All use lead?

Because the gravitational force is proportion to the masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distances, to make the forces large enough to measure with a reasonably small experimental rig - you need BIG masses and SMALL distances - which means you need a very dense material.

There are certainly denser materials than Lead - if we list all of the elements in order of densest to least dense, the first nine elements have to be made synthetically because they don't exist in nature.   If we exclude elements that are so crazily rare that you can't get enough to do an experiment with, then you end up with the list:

Iridium, Platinum, Plutonium, Gold, Tungsten, Uranium, Tantalum, Mercury, Palladium, Thallium, Thorium...and Lead

If we remove the toxic and horribly radioactive ones, we end up with:

Osmium, Iridium, Platinum, Gold, Tungsten, Tantalum, Palladium, Thallium, Thorium...and Lead

Of these, some are VERY expensive - and to make masses that are large enough to produce a measurable force - we need LOTS of material.

So when we trim it down to the cheapest/densest material available - we're pretty much left with Lead.

Even if you were to persuade someone to lend you a couple of tons of gold or tungsten to meld down to do the experiment - these are all metals.

The densest NON-metal is Iodine - but it's density is less than half that of Lead...and it's still pretty expensive in a concentrated form...the next non conductor is Bromine...same problem...Carbon is the next densest non-metal - but that's also a conductor, then Sulphur...but that's less than one fifth of the density of Lead.

So no great mystery - they used lead because it's really the only substance that's dense enough, safe enough and cheap enough in large quantities.

Mercury would perhaps have been a good second choice - but the experiment involves the masses moving around and mercury (being a liquid) would tend to slosh around.   But it's also toxic and pretty expensive.

[Gazza711]

It is the most dense material that is commonly available.
Galileo used wood and other metals and found little change in the speed they fell.

Don't understand it answer?

[Gazza711]

It is the most dense material that is commonly available.
Galileo used wood and other metals and found little change in the speed they fell.

I don't understand your answer?

[3DGeek]

It is the most dense material that is commonly available.
Galileo used wood and other metals and found little change in the speed they fell.

Don't understand it answer?

Galileo wasn't measuring gravity - he was merely observing the speed/acceleration that things fall...that's actually a very different thing.

In this context - Galileo's "dropping stuff off of the Tower of Pisa" (which almost certainly didn't happen by the way) - would have produced the same results for an upwardly accelerating Flat Earth as for a gravitationally bound Round Earth.

The Cavendish experiment (and the others who replicated it) proves that there actually IS gravity between all objects - and that defeats the Flat Earth "universal acceleration" idea.

[Gazza711]

It is the most dense material that is commonly available.
Galileo used wood and other metals and found little change in the speed they fell.

Don't understand it answer?

Galileo wasn't measuring gravity - he was merely observing the speed/acceleration that things fall...that's actually a very different thing.

In this context - Galileo's "dropping stuff off of the Tower of Pisa" (which almost certainly didn't happen by the way) - would have produced the same results for an upwardly accelerating Flat Earth as for a gravitationally bound Round Earth.

The Cavendish experiment (and the others who replicated it) proves that there actually IS gravity between all objects - and that defeats the Flat Earth "universal acceleration" idea.

Anyone that doesn't believe in globe earth that believes in upward acceleration is not worthy of the title flat earther.
So....galileo didn't prove attraction and neither did anyone else. Ur answer is conflictin.

[Gazza711]

Cavendish, focault and schihallion experiments all used lead. Hmm mm.  Strange that. Why not use a non conductor? All use lead?

Because the gravitational force is proportion to the masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distances, to make the forces large enough to measure with a reasonably small experimental rig - you need BIG masses and SMALL distances - which means you need a very dense material.

There are certainly denser materials than Lead - if we list all of the elements in order of densest to least dense, the first nine elements have to be made synthetically because they don't exist in nature.   If we exclude elements that are so crazily rare that you can't get enough to do an experiment with, then you end up with the list:

Iridium, Platinum, Plutonium, Gold, Tungsten, Uranium, Tantalum, Mercury, Palladium, Thallium, Thorium...and Lead

If we remove the toxic and horribly radioactive ones, we end up with:

Osmium, Iridium, Platinum, Gold, Tungsten, Tantalum, Palladium, Thallium, Thorium...and Lead

Of these, some are VERY expensive - and to make masses that are large enough to produce a measurable force - we need LOTS of material.

So when we trim it down to the cheapest/densest material available - we're pretty much left with Lead.

Even if you were to persuade someone to lend you a couple of tons of gold or tungsten to meld down to do the experiment - these are all metals.

The densest NON-metal is Iodine - but it's density is less than half that of Lead...and it's still pretty expensive in a concentrated form...the next non conductor is Bromine...same problem...Carbon is the next densest non-metal - but that's also a conductor, then Sulphur...but that's less than one fifth of the density of Lead.

So no great mystery - they used lead because it's really the only substance that's dense enough, safe enough and cheap enough in large quantities.

Mercury would perhaps have been a good second choice - but the experiment involves the masses moving around and mercury (being a liquid) would tend to slosh around.   But it's also toxic and pretty expensive.

Thanks for ur in depth explanation. So focault works because gold is expensive? How about a bag of nuetral sand? Point is ur answer like the answer is a globe earther response. Where the flat ties these days?

[3DGeek]

Cavendish, focault and schihallion experiments all used lead. Hmm mm.  Strange that. Why not use a non conductor? All use lead?

Because the gravitational force is proportion to the masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distances, to make the forces large enough to measure with a reasonably small experimental rig - you need BIG masses and SMALL distances - which means you need a very dense material.

There are certainly denser materials than Lead - if we list all of the elements in order of densest to least dense, the first nine elements have to be made synthetically because they don't exist in nature.   If we exclude elements that are so crazily rare that you can't get enough to do an experiment with, then you end up with the list:

Iridium, Platinum, Plutonium, Gold, Tungsten, Uranium, Tantalum, Mercury, Palladium, Thallium, Thorium...and Lead

If we remove the toxic and horribly radioactive ones, we end up with:

Osmium, Iridium, Platinum, Gold, Tungsten, Tantalum, Palladium, Thallium, Thorium...and Lead

Of these, some are VERY expensive - and to make masses that are large enough to produce a measurable force - we need LOTS of material.

So when we trim it down to the cheapest/densest material available - we're pretty much left with Lead.

Even if you were to persuade someone to lend you a couple of tons of gold or tungsten to meld down to do the experiment - these are all metals.

The densest NON-metal is Iodine - but it's density is less than half that of Lead...and it's still pretty expensive in a concentrated form...the next non conductor is Bromine...same problem...Carbon is the next densest non-metal - but that's also a conductor, then Sulphur...but that's less than one fifth of the density of Lead.

So no great mystery - they used lead because it's really the only substance that's dense enough, safe enough and cheap enough in large quantities.

Mercury would perhaps have been a good second choice - but the experiment involves the masses moving around and mercury (being a liquid) would tend to slosh around.   But it's also toxic and pretty expensive.

Thanks for ur in depth explanation. So focault works because gold is expensive? How about a bag of nuetral sand? Point is ur answer like the answer is a globe earther response. Where the flat ties these days?

The Focault pendulum experiment is something entirely different.   It has nothing to do with proving anything about gravity.  It proves that the Earth is rotating.

To demonstrate this effectively, you need a pendulum that will swing freely in any direction it wants for many hours (ideally, for a dozen hours or more) without someone having to give it a shove when it starts to slow down.

For that to work, you need to have VERY little friction in the fulcrum and very little air resistance.

Since air resistance increases with speed and surface area, you need a pendulum bob that's as small as possible and swings as slowly as possible.  To keep swinging, it needs a lot of kinetic energy.

For the pendulum to swing slowly, it needs to be VERY long - some of the best examples in museums are 50 feet long.   But kinetic energy is all about speed and mass.   Since it has to swing slowly, to have enough kinetic energy to swing for hours, the thing needs to be heavy.   But to avoid air resistance, it also needs to be small.

So, again (but for different reasons) you need a very DENSE material.

A gold focault pendulum would work very well - but a lead one would be much cheaper.  I've seen one with an iron ball on the end - and that worked pretty good too...so it doesn't absolutely have to be lead if the pendulum is long enough.

It's all about experimental design.