Evening star., 1928-12-23
FIXING EARTH'S WEIGHT
PUZZLE FOR SCIENTISTS
Exact knowledge Unknown, Despite
Many Laboratory Tests for Last
Century-Core Believed Iron.

has been weighed. BY the use of appa-
ratus similar to that which has Just
been described this experiment has been
conducted several times in the last
century. with results of increasing pre-
cision as the technique of laboratory
practice has gradually been perfected.
No work of this kind has been done for
generation, and 1t has been thought
that sufficient progress has been made
in that time to warrant the attempt to
obtain another figure of the weight Of.
the earth. :
Human Interest Element.
About 80 years ago a piece of work
OF this kind was performed which has
about it so much of human interest
that 1t may be told here profitably.
AS has often happened. two men
worked on this experiment at the same
time without knowing of each other
doings. One of them was a British
scientist, Prof. Boys, who worked
with the best facilities that London and
Oxford University could furnish him
He spent several years at the task and
obtained what was believed to be the
most accurate figure obtained up to that
time.
While he was doing this another
man, of whom Prof. BOYS had never
heard, was working at the same prob
lem several hundreds of miles away in
Bohemia. This was DR.. Karl Braun
who had been a Jesuit teacher of
physics all his life. At an advanced
age he retired from teaching and was
sent to monastery in the mountains
OF Bohemia to end his days peacefully
ana quietly. But DR.. Braun could not
content himself In inactivity, and for
something to do he set up an apparatus
IN MS cell In the monastery and deter
mined the weight Of the earth. His
result, when published, was almost ex-
actly that obtained by Prof. Bows.
Much of DIR. Braun's apparatus was
made by himself It Is noteworthy that
ne was the first person to use a vacuum
about his torston pendulum with sue
cess. Prof. Boys, in his published paper
SAID that he believed the use of a high
vacuum to be impracticable.
Prof. Boys could hardly credit DIR
braun's achievement, and made the
long trip to Bohemia to see him. He
1ouno DR.. Braun, at that time over 40
years old. planning repetition of his
work to eliminate some errors which
ne mad recognized. He did not live
to do this. ave
A few years later DR.. Burgess. the
present director of the Bureau of stand
ARDS, carried out an experiment of this
nature involving several novel features
at the Sorbonne in Paris. He did not
however, succeed in improving upcn the
1gure obtained by Boys and Braun.
since that date no work has been done
on the question until it was taken tlp
again, under the supervision Of DR.. Bur-
CESS, at the Bureau Of Standards.
Nothing, It would seem. is too LARGO
or too small for men to attempt to
Welgn and measure. In. this experi-
ment that have Just described both
extremes ape to be found. The enor-
nous mass Of the earth is determined
Dy measuring force so small that onlv
the most delicate pendulum known viii
detect it.
All Is Subject for Study.
The enormous distances from the
eartn TO the sun or to the stars do not
appail the mind of man; neither do the
lnconceivably minute quantities in
VOWED IN the study Of the structure of
atoms. Anything that exists Is a fit
object for study, no matter how large
or how small. Man may be but the
merest speck in the universe, yet in
his intelligent comprehension of it he
is but little lower than the angels.
1t Is said that at one time an astron-
omer discovered new star, which ap-
peared to be approaching the earth with
great velocity. Night after night he
studied it, finally becoming convinced
that 1t was destined to strike the earth
he calculated that this would happen
Wltnm a few years. Night after night
ne watched this approaching doom, fas-
clnated by 1t. He did not announce his
discovery. fearing to witness the orgy
OF laWlessnesS and despair into which It
might plunge the world.
one night he spoke aloud and ad-
dressed the star as follows:
I know that you viii soon DESTROY
me and all things living. can calcu-
iate the day. nay, even the hour when
this will happen. Yet YOU are but .
blind. brute thing, and / would NOT
change places with you!"
Copyright, 1s2s.)