The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-11-14
Golden Jubilee 0fX-Rays Current Issue of America" Carries Timely Story on 5Oth Anniversary of Great Discovery Victor C. Stetchschulte Reviews
 Progress.
DEMOCRAT PHOTO BY covIELLo.
Progress.

ous applause when the photograph of a hand was made and shown at the conclusion of his first public discussion of his work on January 23, 1896. In 1897 a full-size X-ray portrait" of an adult was made in New York.
 During the fifty years that have passed since the pioneer days, the technique of X-ray production, control and use has been vastly improved and extended, one of the big factors being the develop ment of the Coolidge tube. The physician can observe not merely our bones but our heart on his fourescent screen, or examine our lungs for tell-tale spots. X-ray examination for the presence of tuberculosis is happily being ex- tended to growing numbers of our people. Diseased tissues are subjected to X-ray therapy. X-ray examination of castings and steel plates for possible flaws is an or dinary industrial procedure. These are but few of the practical" applications that have flowed from Roentgens discovery.
 Perhaps of even greater import ance has been the use of X-rays as a tool in physical and chemical research. One recalls, for example, how they have enabled us to get into a crystal and to study the very arrangement of the atoms. With X-rayS we have stripped electrons from the atoms them selves and forced our way into their innermost recesses. The X-ray spectra of the various ele- ments-spectra similar to those obtained by visible light-have been immensely fruitful in atomic studies.
 x-rays are not, however, a thing apart, sport" in the field of physics. They are electro-magne- tic radiations of essentially the same kind as radio waves and visible light but, while the length of radio waves may be expressed in feet or even miles, of the waves used in radar in inches and frac- tions of inches, the wave length of X-rays is a few billionths of an inch. Associated with these differ ences in wave length are differ enceS in properties and effects. Among the X-rays themselves the hard" rays, highly penetrating, are distinguished from the soft, less penetrating, rays by their shorter wave length. In cataloging X-rays with light waves and radio waves in the grand gamut of elec- tromagnetic radiations one can- not, of course, pretend that one has thereby answered all ques- tions. Nonetheless there is satis- faction in thus finding unity amid diversity and variety.
 AS we round out the fifty years of the new physics since the dis coVery of X-rays, when the elec- tron has been weighed and meas ured and made our nimble and unbiquitous slave, when the sky above is filled with the voices and music of men from every corner of the earth, when the heart of the atom is entered and split in twain, and when all these manifestations ot Divine Power and Wisdom have been turned by men to untold good ~ and evil - the question again comes back whether all the great discoveries have now at length been made or must We here after merely pursue the next decimal point" Applications of every kind, it is true, will increase; 1; extension and development of present ideas will be had; gadgets and conVeniences and machines will be multiplied without end, but are there basic facts and pheno- mena and principles such as x-rays, photoelectricity, radio activity, still hidden from our sight? Who knows2 At any rate there will still be many expedi- tions and voyages of exploration beyond the rim of our present knowledge, But even when the galleons return from the sunset laden perhaps with new treasure their captains and their crews will be wise if they mediate or the thirty-eighth chapter of the Book of Job.