Measurement of the Newtonian gravitational constant based on the principle of free fall

The Newtonian gravitational constant (G) is one of the fundamental physical constants. This paper introduces a method to determine the Newtonian gravitational constant based on the principle of free fall, through measuring the change of gravity from the disturbed mass with an FG5/112 absolute gravimeter. This method has good repeatability. The measurement precision can be improved by error control and a large number of experiments. The constant G is obtained by two experiments, and the measured value is (6.6665±0.0554)×10 11 m3/(kg·s2). Supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2003CB716300) and Key Project of the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. KZCX2-YW-125)