Experimental natural philosopher who measured terrestrial gravitational attraction and inferred the mean density of Earth in 1798.
Portrait of Henry Cavendish
. Wellcome Library, London / Wellcome Collection; after a drawing by Alexander in the British Museum. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source. Articles by others on the same topic
Henry Cavendish (1731–1810) was a British scientist, chemist, and physicist known for his work in the fields of gas chemistry and electricity. He is best remembered for discovering hydrogen, which he called "inflammable air," and for measuring the density of the Earth in his famous experiment, known as the Cavendish experiment. This experiment allowed for the first accurate determination of the gravitational constant and the mass of the Earth.