Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-10-31
WHAT ARE x-RAYs?
New Weapon in the Search Into the
Mysteries Of Nature.


eu the mysterious rays, which bear
his name 1t has been a puzzle as to
what these rays could be. They seem
like a form of light-they give out
light under proper conditions. Or ra-
Their they cause plates and screens pre-
pared with certain chemicals to become
lumineseent or fiuorescent, as the ply
sioists say, when they are bombarded
bv the X-rays.
But otherwise they do not Cor did
not seem to- act like ordinary light at
all. Fer example. when ordinary light
is passed through a prism it is bent
slightly out of its straight-line course,
and the degree of bending varies with
the color-that is. with the wave
length of light. So.s when a compound
like sunlight is put through the prism
it is split up into all the colors of the
rainbow.
Again, ordinary light rays when
passed through certain substances like
turmaline are ..poplarized"-that is,
only those vibrations which lie in a
particular plane get through. And,
again, it is possible to measure the
wave length" of ordinary light, even
of those waves which lie far above and
far below the limits of visibility. But
all this was impossible with the x
rays.
On the other hand, as everybody
knows, the X-rays are generated when
a metal plate in a vacuum tube IS
bombarded by an electrical stream. 1t
is ono of the greatest discoveries OF
recent years that this electrical stream,
this beautiful glow which is seen in
side the vacuum tubes. is due to myr-
lads of electric atoms" or particles of
gas-air, for example. But while the
weight and charge" of these electri-
cal atoms can actually be measured.
no such measurement could he made
with the "X-rays." And so the puzzle
remained.
Very recently, however. some Eng
lish and German physicists have found
substances which react in very Pc
culiar way to the x-rays. Certain crys-
tails. and the rough edges of mica
plates and the like. it has been dis
covered, will act like glass prism
to the rays, so that the latter can now
he manipulated much like the rays
of ordinary light And in this way 1t
has been established that the rays are
actually little pulses of light. But they
are incredibly thin and small Ordin-
ary light waves are measured in frac-
tons of meter-very small fractions
to be exact, in millionths of q thou
sandth of a meter. A millionth or
meter is called a micron. and thou-
sandth part of this is called, microm-
icron The longest visible rays are 1oo
or 800 of these units in length, and the
shortest, at the violet end of the spec
trum. are about 500. 1t Is possible 70
measure ultraviolet rays, which are
less than 100 units in length. But no
| method of measurement has yet peen
devised which can give any accurate
| idea of the waves in the X-ray pulses
| Probably they are not a thousanotn
| mart the size Of the smallest of the ui-
| traviClet.
But now that their nature has been
| determined now that they can be re
| fracted" and "polarized" just like or
| binary light, it is only matter OF
| time when marvellous instrument max
| ers and ingenious experimenters VIII
| and a way to determine their actual
| dimensions.
| When they do we shall have new
| weapon in the search into Nature
| mysteries and already researches ~
| this field promise to throw new isi
| mon the structure IF atoms ana Hloi'
| acules-that is, the structure OF tha
| "matter, amid which we i've ana
] ,a,t NJ which we are.-Collier's Week
i w