Quartz Fibers
Delicate quartz fibers, only onefiftieth as thick as human hairs; are produced in the United States to be used as parts in sensitive balances and various electric measuring instruments. The almost invisible threads are drawn from the molten ends of rods and attached to a revolving wheel that winds a continuous fiber. Some of them are so fine that 10 miles of them can be wound on a spool that holds only 250 yards of ordinary cotton thread.
Much of the work—which is being done at the General Electric Company plant in Schenectady, in New York State —is done under microscopes. Micro-balances containing the quartz fibers are sensitive enough to show weight differences of less than 1/30,000,000th of an ounce, yet they are strong enough to hold weights 1,000,000 times greater, engineers report. They are not affected by temperature changes and do not lose elasticity even under cohtinued strain.
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Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 3, 27 February 1950, Page 5
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151Quartz Fibers Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 3, 27 February 1950, Page 5
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