Stephan Schlamminger

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NIST's 10-year measurement of gravity's constant deepens a 225-year puzzle

As of September 2026: Published his group's decade-long measurement result in Metrologia

Stephan Schlamminger spent a decade measuring gravity's most stubborn constant without seeing his own answer. A colleague scrambled the data and sealed the key in an envelope, guarding against bias. When Schlamminger finally opened it in July 2024, his result disagreed with the leading value from France.

Updated Sep 20

Notable Quotes

"Every measurement is important, because the truth matters. For me, making an accurate measurement is a way of bringing order to the universe, whether or not the number agrees with the expected value."

from NIST's 10-year measurement of gravity's constant deepens a 225-year puzzle · Updated Sep 20

"At face value, we learned that the new measurement at NIST and the previous measurement at BIPM do not agree with each other. That gives us some idea on the reproducibility of the experiment(s)."

from NIST's 10-year measurement of gravity's constant deepens a 225-year puzzle · Updated Sep 20