The Gravitational Constant G May Decrease between Millimetre-Sized Masses

Abstract

The Newtonian gravitational constant G is one of the most important fundamental constants of nature, but still remains resistant to the standard model of physics and disconnected from quantum theory. During the past >100 years, hundreds of G values have been measured to be ranging around 6.66 to 6.7559 × 10 − 11 m 3 ·kg −1 ·s −2 using macroscopic masses. More recently, however, a G value ((6.04 ± 0.06) × 10 −11 m 3 ·kg −1 ·s −2 ) measured using millimetre-sized masses shows significant deviation (by ~9%) from the reference G value, which the authors explained is resulted from “the known systematic uncertainties”. However, based on the observation of historical G values and the protocol of the millimetre-sized masses based experiment, here we proposed a theory that this deviation is not from “systematic uncertainties” but actually G will rapidly decrease when masses sphere diameter is less than 0.02 metres. Moreover, this theory predicted the G value will be 5.96 × 10 − 11 m 3 ·kg −1 ·s −2 between masses whose diameter are 2 millimetres (0.002 metres), which matches the measured G value very well.