Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Natural color X-ray photogram of a wine scene. Note the edges of hollow cylinders as compared to the solid candle. William Coolidge explains medical imaging and X-rays.. An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays.
Hard X-rays have shorter wavelengths than soft X-rays and as they can pass through many substances with little absorption, they can be used to 'see through' objects with 'thicknesses' less than that equivalent to a few meters of water. One notable use is diagnostic X-ray imaging in medicine (a process known as radiography). X-rays are useful as ...
Optics is part of everyday life. The ubiquity of visual systems in biology indicates the central role optics plays as the science of one of the five senses. Many people benefit from eyeglasses or contact lenses, and optics are integral to the functioning of many consumer goods including cameras. Rainbows and mirages are examples of optical ...
This is most obvious in the "far" (or "extreme") ultraviolet. UV, with X-ray and gamma radiation, are referred to as ionizing radiation due to the ability of photons of this radiation to produce ions and free radicals in materials (including living tissue). Since such radiation can severely damage life at energy levels that produce little ...
These effects also occur when a light wave travels through a medium with a varying refractive index, or when a sound wave travels through a medium with varying acoustic impedance – all waves diffract, [3] including gravitational waves, [4] water waves, and other electromagnetic waves such as X-rays and radio waves.
Maxwell's equations further indicated that electromagnetic waves existed, and the experiments of Heinrich Hertz confirmed this, making radio possible. Maxwell also postulated, correctly, that light was a form of electromagnetic wave, thus making all of optics a branch of electromagnetism.
When Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays in 1895 [1] physicists were uncertain of the nature of X-rays, but suspected that they were waves of electromagnetic radiation.The Maxwell theory of electromagnetic radiation was well accepted, and experiments by Charles Glover Barkla showed that X-rays exhibited phenomena associated with electromagnetic waves, including transverse polarization and ...
In medicine, X-rays are absorbed to different extents by different tissues (bone in particular), which is the basis for X-ray imaging. In chemistry and materials science, different materials and molecules absorb radiation to different extents at different frequencies, which allows for material identification.