Term “gravitational constant” was for the first time introduced more than 200 years ago, and since that time attempts have been made to refine its value. As per the materials of Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA), all indirect measurements of the “gravitational constant” obtained by various research groups exhibit in the SI system equality of two first decimals and spread in subsequent decimals. We have analyzed this situation by using the torsion balance mathematical model. This paper shows that this situation might be explained by solving the direct metrological problem, namely, calculation of the necessary measurement accuracies of each of the torsion balance parameters from the preset accuracy of the “gravitational constant” value. Decimal-by-decimal analysis of the torsion balance sensitivity, jointly with the CODATA data, has lead us to the assumption that all the variety of the “gravitational constant” values was obtained at experimental setups without appropriately planning the final result accuracy.

"Advanced Problems in Mechanics (APM 2018)", International Conference (46; 2018; St. Petersburg, Russia). Proceedings of the XLVI Summer School-Conference "Advanced Problems in Mechanics (APM 2018)" [Электронный ресурс] / Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Problems in Mechanical Engineering, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University. — Электрон. текстовые дан. (1 файл : 19,8 Мб). — St. Petersburg, 2018. — Загл. с титул. экрана. — Электронная версия печатной публикации. — Свободный доступ из сети Интернет (чтение, печать, копирование). — Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0. — <URL:http://elib.spbstu.ru/dl/2/k18-12.pdf>. — <URL:http://doi.org/10.18720/SPBPU/2/k18-12>.