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Can the force of gravity ever be measured on a single particle?

  1. Aug 10, 2013 #1
    I haven't taken the time, but I'm pretty sure the force would be too low to ever, ever be measurable. But has anyone ever measured the force of gravity, from at least an atom? I'm not meaning the effects of gravity upon the atom, I'm meaning the exertion of gravitational force from an atom, to another particle.

    Say you have one hydrogen atom suspended in space, you put a detector with another particle in an electric field, at a distance, the particle would sway thorwards the atom, due to gravitation(other factors calculated and taken into account). How massive does an objective have to be until you can actually start measuring it's gravitational field?
  2. jcsd
  3. Aug 10, 2013 #2
    Now the gravitation exerted from a single atom to another single atom is really very very negligible.
    This is because gravity is proportional to mass or in other words mass has gravity but since gravity is the weakest force , it's effects are extremely small when one deals with such small mass as the mass of an single atom.

    If you would measure that single atom in the gravitational field of a black hole or a huge star now that would be a different case.
  4. Aug 10, 2013 #3
    You are asking if the active gravitational mass of a singe atom has ever been measured. The short answer is no. As you have already speculated, the gravitational field produced by a single atom would be much too weak for any instrument to measure. However, it is possible to measure the active gravitational mass of a macro sized object composed of a single element.

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