| The Newtonian Law of Universal Gravitation states that the strength of the gravitational force between point test bodies falls as the inverse-square of the distance between them. Recently, novel new theoretical scenario, inspired by string or M theory, predict possible violations of this inverse-square behavior with test mass separations below 1 mm.; Motivated by these theories, we tested the gravitational inverse-square law at separations ranging down to 138 μm using 10-fold symmetric torsion pendulums and rotating 10-fold symmetric attractors. We improved previous constraints on inverse square law violations by up to a factor of 104 and saw no deviations from Newtonian physics. These measurements describe the first direct observation of the gravitational interaction with test mass separations below 0.5 mm.; We performed two similar experiments denoted by ‘I’ and ‘II’ throughout the text. This dissertation includes thorough descriptions of the apparatus, analysis procedures, and results of these experiments. |
