A SCIENTIFIC WONDER.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5213, 7 December 1927, Page 3

A SCIENTIFIC WONDER.

A SCIENTIFIC WONDER. What is claimed to be the most refined measuring apparatus in existence, an instrument which measures one billionth part of an inch, or a millionth of a degree Fahrenheit, is on exhibition a the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York. The inventor, Mr P. P. Cioffi, says that the apparatus ‘ was constructed to measure the minute construction K and expansion which wires of differ- • ent composition undergo when they are magnetised, and is approximately a hundred times more sensitive than ;the most delicate instrument hitherto ■in use. A change of temperature of .even a thousandth- part of a degree Fahrenheit is sufficient to cause a .spot of light to race across the scale ((says a Reuter’s message). .Some 80 years ago Sir Joseph Whitworth, to whom the world owes the “Surface Plate,” for producing true plane surfaces, the standardisation of screw threads, and other epoch-mak-ing inventions, built a measuring machine capable of gauging to limits of one-millionth of an inch. So sensitive ■is this instrument, whi.ch' is still in existence, thqt it would register the increase in size by a small piece of steel when held in the hand for a second or two.