Precision-accuracy-sensitivity: Charles Augustin Coulomb´s work in electrostatics

The French military engineer Charles Augustin Coulomb started in 1785 with the presentation of a series of memoirs on electricity and magnetism. Already in the first memoir, Coulomb described the central instrument that is nowadays inseparably connected to his name: the torsion balance. Moreover, he also described in this memoir the experimental demonstration of (the central part of) the electrostatic law that has been named after him. Coulomb´s experiments to demonstrate the inverse square relation in case of electrostatic repulsion are certainly one of the classical examples in experimental science. This is absolutely justified as Coulomb´s publication marks a significant step in the development of electrostatics if not physics, as the torsion balance is the first instrument that can be labeled electrometer in retrospect.