A NEW DISCOVERY OF SCIENCE

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 5294, 4 June 1904, Page 11

A NEW DISCOVERY OF SCIENCE

Tho scientist in recent years hatf provided the public with no small number of sensations; but AL Blondlot’s discovery of the emanations to which ho has

given the name of X-rays has not stimulated the public imagination to anything like the extent which might have been expected. Owing, perhaps, to the way in 1 which wireless telegraphy and radium have so far disappointed those who heralded their discovery us the dawn of a now era—and iu this connection tho statement may be noted that tho radium experiments in connection with tho treatment of cancer have been discontinued at the Cancer Hospital—the N-mys have been received in this # country with a certain amount of scepticism. It is certainly an extraordinary ray. which is emitted by u piece of wood, glass or indmrubber, screwed up in a carpenter's bench vice, or which procods, for a considerable length of time, from a piece of bent or twisted iron, or of which hammered brass or tempered steel, or other body in a condition of molecular strain, is a spontaneous and permanent source. But there is in all this nothing irreconcilable with any scientific doctrine, and in view of the published experiments of such distinguished physicists as M. Blondlot and M. Charpentior. there is little room lor reasonable doubt. The N-ray seems to have been discovered almost by accident, Tn the course of some experiments, it. Blondlot was endeavouring to pa«i Roentgen rays through a sheet of aluminium, when *ho found that they wero kept back by the aluminium, but that a rav hitherto unknown passed through as through a filter. The N-mys are invisible, but they may bo detected by their , property of increasing the intensity of the illumination of, a phosphorescent screen previously excited by exposure to ordinary light, or of increasing the.brilliancy of an electric spark, or of a minute blue flame of gas, upon which they are allowed to fall An article in the current number of. “Knowledge” points out that even the human body omits and that the phosphorescent screen will indicate by an increased intensity of ulnminatioh. tho near approach of a living body. This increase in intensity is marked when the screen is brought near a muscle, and the more pronounced as the muscle is the more strongly contracted. The screen is also excited when m proximity to a nerve, and it is stated to bo possible to follow tho course of af superficial, nerve by observing tho variations in tho screen. The most remarkable feature of tho N-rays, however, is that they appear to be capable of reinforcing the ordinary rays of light in such a manner as, for instance, to render legible print which, in their absence, is too .dimlv illuminated to bo more than simply visible as a grey something—and this, though the N-rays are incapable by themselves of making any object visible. Tho action of the N-rays in this connection, seems to bo not to increase the illumination, but rather to augment tho acuteness of the perceptive nerves, since, aa the current lancet” points out,, a similar phenomenon has been observed in their action on*the senseis of smell, taste and hearing. The sense of smell may oven be stimulated by throwing the. N* - rays upon the appropriate surface of tho brain through the skull. It has for soma time been questioned whether all the N-rays are identical in character. M. Blondlot has shown that they are not, and the most recent discovery is that one variety, to which it is proposed to give the name of N, possesses all the , qualities of the N-rays, but in reverse. That,is to say tho onect of the N-rays is to diminish the intensity of a phosphorescent screen; and to blunt the senses exposed to their influence. All sorts of interesting speculations arise from M. Blondlot’s discoveries. The sun, for instance, is a powerful source ol N-rays. Are the senses of mankind ■ and the animal kingdom generally more acute by, day than night? If not, can it bo that the sun emits an equal or preponderating amount of the dulling N-mys ? Again, it is’ known that living muscles, whether voluntary or involuntary, emit N-rays. Can' one, then, .diagnose death with, certainty by means of a phosphorescent screen? Tonally, it may bo noted, that the wave length of the N-ray has been recently determined as not greater than eight micro-millimctice, which is incomparably smaller than tho wave length of. the rays of light. Rays: with a wave length so exceedingly minute, may be of greater service, observes the “Yorkshire Post,” to : tho scientist in the pursuit of many problems awaiting solution.