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Discovery

Purpose

klotz:

Trying to determine whether X rays are particles or waves. So see if X-rays can be polarized.
Placed an X ray detector in the path of the X rays at various orientations. The detector was made of a pair of sharply pointed wires with a spark jumping between them. If the X rays were polarised in the same plane as the line along which the spark was jumping then Blondlot expected the electric part of the electromagnetic wave to increase the spark's energy and so its brightness.
Blondlot measured this increase in spark brightness when the spark-gap detector was placed at a certain angle with respect to the electric-discharge tube. BUT! Further experiments showed that these changes must have been produced by radiation refracted through a quartz prism. It had previously been shown that quartz prisms cannot refract X rays, leading Blondlot to conclude that the changes in spark brightness must have been caused by some new form of electromagnetic radiation, which he christened N rays.

nye:

suggestions from JJ that x-rays would be emitted plane-polarized at upon emission because of the unidirectionality of the parent cathode rays (Nye p 127)
figure 1b enhances the diagram Blondlot himself created. (Nye p 127)
Same spark detector used by Heinrich Hertz, but Hertz measured the length of the spark, not its brightness. Blondlot suggested that changes in spark length and brightness were both caused by decreasing the air's electrical resistance. He argued that in a strong spark this decrease would be inappreciable; therefore, it was necessary to use small, weak sparks. (Nye p 128)
The effect was only detectable using the spark analyser; N rays could not produce fluorescence on bromide or cyanide screens and no direct photographic effects. (Nye p 129)
The visual detection of changes in luminosity was a commonly used technique in French optics research in spite of its inherent subjectivity. Researchers in other countries favored (favoured?) more objective photographic effects and ionization measurements. (Nye p 130)

lagemann:

Reaction to result

Lots of papers, lots of researchers, lots of properties allegedly discovered.

Lots of failed replications.

Wood's visit

Wood visited lab. Kerblammoed in Nature.

Aftermath

What happened to Blondlot?

Langmuir's talk in which he defines pathological science and uses N rays as one of the defining examples.

More