You go to the dentist and it looks as though you’re due for X-Rays. They drape you with a lead apron, put film in your mouth (gag) and run behind a barrier. Is this thing safe? Yes and no. If you do this procedure several times a day, like the technician, it’s extremely hazardous. Which is why they go behind the screen. If you have it done every couple of years, not so much.
Still there’s a danger, and that’s why they shield the rest of you. All of which points us to the conundrum of X-Rays. On the one hand they allow the dentist to find cavities he wouldn’t with a visual inspection only, but X-rays can, and do, cause cancer. On the other hand, you're bombarded with various types (including X-Rays) of electromagnetic radiation every day, whether you like it or not (and just try wearing lead clothing) but at such low levels it’s really not a danger.
We all know that the dentist is not the only one to use X-Rays. They are a major component of medicine because of their ability to see below the surface of skin and detect things like a broken bone (too dense for the X-Rays to pass through) or recognize a potentially dangerous spot on an internal organ. Radiography is the name for the most common use of X-Rays in medicine. It’s what’s used for teeth and to inspect bones and other general medical procedures and it uses the least amount of radiation. Consider the alternative of cutting open an arm to see if the bone is fractured. Pretty messy when you think about it.
Of course, X-Rays have existed for forever, but they were first discovered in Munich in 1895, when Wilhelm Rontgen noticed that the Crookes Tube (an early cathode ray tube) was emitting something very strange. He experimented with his new-found toy and after seeing the results of his wife’s hand on photographic paper, the X-Ray was born. Wilhelm called it an X-Ray, with the X standing for an unknown ray. Others called them Rontgen Rays (much to his chagrin) and even though Wilhelm objected, it’s what they’re still often called in his native Germany.
None of this went unnoticed. Hundreds of papers were written about the new phenomenon, followed by many dubious experiments, by any and all who could get their hands on a Crookes Tube. Wilhelm won the first Nobel Prize for Physics, and those real and ersatz researchers soon discovered that X-Rays were far more dangerous than was first thought. Hair loss, burns, blistering and death slowed people’s ardor for a while. However in the 1950’s shoe stores were using X-Ray machines (fluoroscopes) as a gimmick to aid sales, by claiming it made it easier to find the right shoe. How many of those sales people (and shoe hounds) do you think died of cancer?
Now the great irony here is that even though prolonged exposure to X-Rays can cause cancer it can also be used to fight it. Radiation therapy is often used alone, or in conjunction with drugs and surgery, to eliminate the cancerous cells. And as mentioned earlier, hair loss can be a side effect of this cure. The higher doses of radiation can eliminate the cancer (or cancerous tumor) and although they can affect ordinary cells, the healthy cells often recover easily.
The last use of the X-Ray brings it back to its’ origins in deep space. The X-Ray Telescope is unlike your standard telescope. Because X-Rays are so different than other observable things in space, it uses curved mirrors instead of lenses. And because of the nature of our atmosphere, the telescopes must be in space. The Chandra is the latest and greatest of such telescopes from NASA. Because high heat produces the X-Rays, they reveal a world of explosive Super Nova’s, Black Holes, and general super-heated chaos. Can a Hollywood film called X-Ray Telescope be far behind?