Ghosts in the machine

• Autores: Gilead Amit
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3163, 2018, págs. 26-27
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • It's not often that cannons get used for target practice. These images show some of the first machines built to emit X-rays, now given a taste of their own medicine. The stark, ghostly quality of X-ray scans have transfixed us for over a hundred years. When you shine an ordinary beam of light at an opaque object, it casts a shadow. But if the light's frequency is sufficiently high, the beam can pass through tissue as though it were transparent. Devices such as those shown here, commonly known as X-ray tubes, generate these high-frequency waves by accelerating electrons into a solid target. If the collision is sufficiently violent, the target atoms can be made to emit X-rays as a way of dissipating the excess energy