In 1903 Rene Blondot at the University of Nancy in France published a paper about N-rays in a magazine called Nature. He found them in different places such as in a brick wrapped in black paper and even built a machine to make them. X-rays had just been discovered and lots of people had evidence for them so were keen to believe him. He invited a physicist from the USA called Robert Wood to test his claims. Wood saw the machine for making N-rays but took out a prism before the demonstration without Blondot knowing. Blondot still claimed N-rays were made during his demonstration. Next Wood put the prism back into the machine but he was seen by Blondot who thought he was removing the prism. In the next demonstration Blondot claimed that no N-rays were made.
Do you think that X-rays exist? How do
you know?
Do you think that N-rays exist? How do you know?
(Source TES 28/1/05)