Page:Light waves and their uses.djvu/75

Rh of this small ball. This force is so exceedingly small that it is difficult to measure it by an ordinary balance, even if the microscope is employed. But by the interference method the approach of the large ball to the small one produced a displacement of seven whole fringes. The number of fringes can be determined to something of the order of one-twentieth of the width of one fringe. We therefore have with this instrument the means of measuring the gravitation constant, and thence the mass of the whole earth, to within about of the whole. By still more sensitive adjustment it would be possible to exceed this degree of accuracy.

An instrument in which the interferometer is used for testing the accuracy of a screw is shown in Fig. 53. The screw which was to be tested by this device was intended to be used in a ruling engine for the manufacture of diffraction gratings. Now, it is necessary, in ruling gratings, to make the distance between the lines the same to within a small fraction of a micron. The error in the position of any of the lines must be less than a ten-millionth part of an inch. Ordinarily a screw from the best machinists has errors a thousand times as great. The screw must then be tested and corrected. The testing is often done with the microscope, but here the microscope is replaced by the