History and presentation of the Cavendish experiment in textbooks in the 20th century

TL;DR

This paper examines how 20th-century textbooks often incorrectly describe Cavendish's experiment as measuring G, highlighting the myth's prevalence and exploring reasons behind this historical inaccuracy.

Contribution

It provides a systematic analysis of textbook representations of Cavendish's experiment and discusses the reasons for the persistent myth in physics education.

Findings

The myth appears in most textbooks throughout the 20th century.

Authors' focus on historical development influences the myth's prevalence.

The paper suggests alternative approaches to teaching Cavendish's experiment.

Abstract

The experiment performed by Henry Cavendish to measure the density of the earth, is in numerous textbooks described as a measurement of the universal gravitational constant, G, even if we know that this was not true. In this paper, a study on how common this "myth" is based on the checklist developed by Leite on a total of 84 textbooks. The prevalence of the myth in most textbooks throughout the 20th century indicates a focus on the contemporary interests of authors and the physics community in presenting the development of physics. An explanation of the prevalence of the myth and a different approach