An experiment with the balance to find if change of temperature has any effect upon weight

Abstract

In all the experiments hitherto made to determine the gravitative attraction between two masses, the temperature has not varied more than a few degrees, and there are no results which would enable us to detect with certainty any dependence of attraction upon temperature even if such dependence exists. It is true, as Professor Hicks has pointed out, that Baily’s results for the Mean Density of the Earth, if arranged in the order of the temperature of the apparatus when they were obtained, show a fall in value as the temperature rises. But this is almost certainly some secondary effect, due to errors in the measurements of the apparatus, or to the seasons at which different attracted masses were used. The ideal experiment to find if temperature has an effect on gravitation would consist in one determination of the gravitative attraction between two masses at, say 15°C., and another determination at, say, the temperature of boiling liquid air. But the difficulties of exact determination at ordinary temperatures are not yet overcome, and at any very high or very low temperatures, they would be so much increased that the research seems at present hopeless.