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Einstein's "Maschinchen" (Little Machine) |
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Editor's Blog
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Written by xScience.Info
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Wednesday, 13 September 2006 |
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 A photograph representing Einstein's Maschinchen (courtesy of the Museum Boerhaave Leyden, The Netherlands). The photograph is the original from the collection of the Museum Boerhaave in Leyden. An electrometer is connected to the right side of the Maschinchen.
One of Einstein's creations, which he called his
"Maschinchen", or little machine, sought to measure voltages at the
level of 0.0005 volts. This sort of precision is easy to achieve
nowadays but was not possible in 1907, when Einstein developed a
contraption which took charge induced on a metal plate by a weak
nearby potential and then stored it in a special accumulator; the
effect of the small voltage signal could then be multiplied.
Three
known versions of this machine are known to exist, at least one of
which was used in an experiment conducted by Walter Gerlach (who
later worked on the Stern-Gerlach discovery of electron spin). Now,
two scientists at the University of Ghent in Belgium have performed
computer simulations to show in detail how the Maschinchen worked.
Danny Segers says that he and Jos Uyttenhove
are building a replica to better explore Einstein's handiwork.
Related Links:
Segers and Uyttenhove, American Journal of Physics, August 2006
Credits: AIP
Intro image provided by Albert Einstein Denkmal
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