Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T00:54:53.187Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1897: On the Nature of the Röntgen Rays (Wilde Lecture)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2011

Get access

Summary

Ever since the remarkable discovery of Professor Röntgen was published, the subject has attracted a great deal of attention in all civilised countries, and numbers of physicists have worked experimentally, endeavouring to make out the laws of these rays, to determine their nature if possible, and to arrange for their application. I am sorry to say that I have not myself worked experimentally at the subject; and that being the case, there is a certain amount of presumption perhaps in my venturing to lecture on it. Still, I have followed pretty well what has been done by others, and the subject borders very closely on one to which I have paid considerable attention; that is, the subject of light.

In Röntgen's original paper he stated that it was shown experimentally that the seat of these remarkable rays was the place where the so-called cathodic rays fall on the opposite wall of the highly-exhausted tube in which they are produced. I will not stop to describe what is meant by cathodic rays. It would take me too much away from my subject, and I may assume, I think, that the audience I am now addressing know what is meant by that term. This statement of Röntgen's was not, I think, universally accepted. Some experimentalists set themselves to investigate the point by observing the positions of the shadows cast by bodies subjected to the discharge of the Röntgen rays–to investigate, I say, the place within the tube from which the rays appeared to come.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009
First published in: 1905

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×