http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/10/22/scotch.tape.xray/index.html
Quote: It turns out that if you peel the popular adhesive tape off its roll in a vacuum chamber, it emits X-rays. The researchers even made an X-ray image of one of their fingers.
Quote 2: Escobar noted that no X-rays are produced in the presence of air. You need to work in a vacuum -- not exactly an everyday situation.
------------------------------------
Wow! Something we use all the time, scotch tape, could do an x-ray of our fingers... that is *IF* we were in a vacuum.
Very interesting...
sooo.. basically you could make an Xray machine at your house if you built a vacuum?
Pryme8 wrote:sooo.. basically you could make an Xray machine at your house if you built a vacuum?
In theory, yes. But you'd have to first have a vacuum, a machine to peel the tape really fast, x-ray paper, and then a means to develop the x-ray.
Interesting article. I think it's going to be things like this that are the next breakthroughs in technology. I'm talking about discovering different uses for things that we never thought about before.
I figure we could make some pretty cool stuff, I wonder what else might happen in a vacuum then...
so i take it, that its the friction causing the reaction?
Better picture here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27323869/
Pryme8 wrote:so i take it, that its the friction causing the reaction?
No, it's electrons jumping between the two surfaces.