The
most striking property of the X rays is, on the contrary, the facility
with which they pass through obstacles, and it is impossible not to
attach considerable importance to such a difference.
Some attribute this marvellous radiation to longitudinal vibrations,
which, as M. Duhem has shown, would be propagated in dielectric media
with a speed equal to that of light. But the most generally accepted
idea is the one formulated from the first by Sir George Stokes and
followed up by Professor Wiechert. According to this theory the X rays
should be due to a succession of independent pulsations of the ether,
starting from the points where the molecules projected by the cathode
of the Crookes tube meet the anticathode. These pulsations are not
continuous vibrations like the radiations of the spectrum; they are
isolated and extremely short; they are, besides, transverse, like the
undulations of light, and the theory shows that they must be
propagated with the speed of light. They should present neither
refraction nor reflection, but, under certain conditions, they may be
subject to the phenomena of diffraction.
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