In the Dark

A paper by Norbert Klein caught my eye as I tried to catch up on my arXiv reading after a couple of days away last week. It’s called Evidence for Modified Newtonian Dynamics from Cavendish-type gravitational constant experiments and the abstract reads:

Recent experimental results for the gravitational constant G from Cavendish-type experiments were analysed in the framework of MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics). The basic assumption for the analysis is that MOND corrections apply only to the component of the gravitational field which leads to an accelerated motion of the pendulum body according to Newtons second law. The analysis is based on numerical solutions of the MOND corrected differential equation for a linear pendulum at small acceleration magnitudes of the order of Milgroms fundamental acceleration parameter a₀ = 10^-10m s^-2 for the case of a mixed gravitational and electromagnetic pendulum restoring force. The results from the pendulum simulations were employed to fit experimental data from recent Cavendish-type experiments with reported discrepancies between G values determined by different measurement methods for a similar experimental setup, namely time of swing, angular acceleration feedback, electrostatic servo and static deflection methods. The analysis revealed that the reported discrepancies can be explained by MOND corrections with one single fit parameter. The MOND corrected results were found to be consistent with a value of G = 6.6742 x 10^-11 m³ kg^-1 s^-2 within a standard deviation of 14 ppm.

I have edited the abstract slightly for formatting and added the link to an explanation of MOND. You can find a PDF of the paper here.

I blogged about the discrepancies between different determinations of Newton’s Gravitational Constant G a few years ago here, where you can find this figure:

The claim that Modified Newtonian Dynamics can resolve these `discrepancies’  is very bold and I’m very skeptical of the arguments presented in this paper. It seems to me far more likely that the divergence in experimental measurements is due to systematics.  If anyone else has different views, however,  please feel free to share them through the comments box.