RONTGEN RAYS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1825, 11 August 1913, Page 8

RONTGEN RAYS.

» f INFLECTION FROM METALS. Somo interesting experiments with Rontgen rays have been made lately in AYellington. The Rontgen rays wore discovered in 1895, and the difference of their properties from visible light then and since has made them a wonderful phenomenon. Id spite of thousands of investigations in tho nature, of the rays, no caso of tho optical reflection, or refraction (bending the rays by ; transparent bodies) had been observed till quito recently. During last year lCnipping. Friedrich, and Laue, working ill Germany, succeeded in reflecting Rontgen rajs from certain nonmetallic substances. Though tho effect of the incidence of the rays on metals has often been studied, no regular reflection had ever been observed. Mi - . Stewart, Demonstrator of Physics at Victoria College, and Professor Laby have just succeeded in reflecting Rontgen rays from a metal. A crystal of bismuth was used in tho experiment, and a photographic plate exposed to the rays, coming from the bismuth, shows them to be faintly reflect■ed according to' the ordinary optical law. An exposure of about ten hours was found necsssary. European scientists find the wavo length of Rontgen rays to be less than one hundred millionth of an inch. Different forms of light or- radiant heat' have a wave length from one hundred thousandth to one hundredth of an inch, while Hertzian waves vary in. length from an eighth of an inch to nearly a mile.