ADVANCE OF SCIENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19158, 26 October 1925, Page 9

ADVANCE OF SCIENCE.

SENSITIVE INSTRUMENTS

NEW AMERICAN INVENTION,

A. and N.Z. NEW YORK. Oct. 23. ' In the belief that the most sensitive measuring instrument in existence will locate petroleum deposits better than the instruments which are now in use, three American oil companies have requested to be supplied with duplicates of one which reacts to a weight one 280 billionth part of an ounce. This instrument was perfected by Professor Ralph Hartsough, of the physics department of the Columbia University, which is financing his experiments to test the Einstein theory this winter. The professor believes he can multiply the sensitivity of the instrument a thousandfold. It is now 100 times more sensitive tkan the Ectvos balance. The latter can detect oil and metal deposits by weight. It is not fine enough, however, to show how the sun and the moon affect gravity at the earth's surface. Professor Hartsough has successfully recorded the effect produced in a fraction of a second by the changing position of the moon, or the gravitational attraction which the earth exerts on an object which weighs one 29-thousandth part of an ounce. ,

The apparatus involves the use of Michelson's interfometer measurements of wave lengths and light.