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X-Rays Emitted From Ordinary Scotch Tape
Maximum Prophet writes "When I was in High School, I built an X-Ray machine that (probably) didn't produce any X-Rays. I used an old vacuum tube and high voltage. Little did I know that simple triboluminescence would have enough energy to do useful work." The catch: you'll need to peel your tape in a vacuum, and have the x-ray film at the ready.
does this mean that x-mas gifts can give you cancer?
The catch: you'll need to peel your tape in a vacuum
I've been practicing this for years. I knew it would come in handy some day.
Sounds like a job for....
THE GLOVEBOX!!!
No, not that glovebox, this glovebox. What do you think this is, a redneck website?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The claims for the patent are, of course, not really indicated, but since the article itself states
Actually, more than 50 years ago, some Russian scientists reported evidence of X-rays from peeling sticky tape off glass.
I hope that either they've invented something truly novel to do with this effect or they get a big, fat denied letter in the mail from the USPTO.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
It was cleverly disguised as a malfunctioning computer monitor.
Getting your face and eyes hit by needlepoints of pain isn't an experience I care to repeat. It's fun for about the first 15 seconds after that no so much.
The catch: you'll need to peel your tape in a vacuum
Oh trust me, I "peel my tape in a vacuum" all the time....
This guy's the limit!
I'm sure, almost certain, that the ripping sound you hear is the sound of a million geeks all pulling about 1.2 inches of tape off of their desktop dispenser.
Bonus points if it's now wrapped around your finger as a memento.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Did you know that Brazil nuts are radioactive? And so is granite! There's radiation everywhere! Luckily, I have a hat.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
So I should avoid opening Christmas presents too close to the Hoover...check.
See, this is why I read Slashdot: useful tips like this one. My wife always runs the vacuum around the Christmas tree before we go to bed on Christmas Eve, and often she just leaves it there right by the tree. Luckily, my kids have developed gift opening techniques that somehow manage to rip the wrapping paper into several hundred small pieces without ever disengaging the tape, so they probably haven't been exposed to too much radiation thus far, but we'll have to be sure to put the vacuum back in the closet before going to bed from now on.
You're probably thinking of black body radiation, which is decidedly different from this. For a black body to emit enough X-rays to do any useful work, it'd have to be pretty damn hot (something glowing red-hot is around 1000K). In other words, this seems to be an interesting discovery.
I wonder how this is going to affect items with similar properties (like good ol' duct tape) while at the space station.
"Hey! there's a leak on the outside wall but damn it, they wouldn't let us bring any duct tape!" :)
A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere. -- Groucho Marx
"Hey baby, I'm gonna get some scotch tape cause I wanna see your insides."
-or-
"If I'm scotch tape and your the vacuum then why don't we go release some energy."
-or even-
"If you want rapid pulses, I'll give you 1.2 inches a second."
but instead you went with:
Oh trust me, I "peel my tape in a vacuum" all the time....
I'm sorry but I just can't accept that.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
Or a pony.
In which case the pony-shaped wrapping and the labored breathing give it away.
A more practical approach might be to have two wide wheels, one covered in the substance, and the other with a smooth non-stick surface centered in a vaccum ball. The substance could be reapplied easily whenever need be, and be a little less ridiculous.
Will this lead to a wave of new sticky-tape-related superheroes?
The article suggests Bremsstrahlung (note the 3rd paragraph of the linked article) of the electrons jumping from the non-sticky surface to the sticky surface of the tape - I guess the air present in a non-vacuum situation lets the electrons slow gradually or maybe have lower initial velocity - that part is unclear from the article.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
I see you got to your pony on xmas faster than I did.
I used an old vacuum tube and high voltage.
Well, I don't necessarily endorse your kink, but if it provides a cost effective alternative to Viagra for you ...
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
We will not see this technology being used to actually help people for 20+ years. The researchers have already been paid to discover this result in their salaries. Why should they be paid again on the backs of those who actually develop practical uses for this discovery? Of what benefit is it to society for this technology to be hoarded by a small few?
The patenting of scientific phenomena is a shameful institution that needs to be stopped. A university is not supposed to be a for profit institution.
May the Maths Be with you!
Typical X-ray machines use 50 to 200 kilovolts and milliamps of electrons slamming into a tungsten target. Nothing less will do.
It's kinda unlikely Scotch (brand) tape can bypass all the bottlenecks and emit copious X-rays.
It's much more likely they're getting electrostatic discharges in the film. The New Age loonballs call it "Kirlian Photography".
I'll be glad to eat a hat if this pans out. Until then I'll just wear it.
a phenomenon I learned about in photography class many years ago. Back in the days of film a roll of 35mm film was attached to the spool inside the canister by a small bit of tape. In the darkroom as you disassembled the canister to remove the film for processing, if you peeled this tape quickly the "peeling", or "stretching" adhesive would glow. We learned to peel the tape slowly because the glow from rapidly pulled tape was sufficient to fog film.
Don't let Red Green know or we'll have some really fast, radioactive van running around Canada.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
With the work Ive done with high power vaccum tubes (> 30 Kilowatts output), it has become standard practice for Eimac and other manufacturers to list dangers for them.
eg., the 4-1000 tetrode, with > 12 KV on the anode, will emit xrays. As will almost ANY other tetrode or triode in existance.
I'd say the person who wrote the article didn't understand that He'd need THAT much anode voltage to get the tube to emit.
That being said, I'd almost have to say that the scotch tape being used to emit the XRays would be doing so because of a HUGE electrostatic (static electricity) charge.
Most of the tubes I work with are a quarter megawatt can be seen on my old website, http://www.bigradios.com/tollfree
--Toll_Free
...EVERYTHING in the universe is radioactive to some degree. Except for iron.
To be radioactive you have to have nuclei. 96% of the Universe is Dark Matter and Dark Energy that does not contain any nuclei. Of the remaining 4% the vast majority is in stable isotopes of hydrogen and helium and so is not radioactive. Additionally there are radioactive isotopes of iron. Iron-56 may be the most stable atomic nucleus but there are many other isotopes of iron some of which are radioactive.
What is the museum doing under water?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
There's an informative video in Nature about the phenomenom and the experiment: http://www.nature.com/nature/videoarchive/x-rays/
They even show how to take x-rays using scotch tape.
All Rights Reversed.
Don't save the big one for last.
I guess that solves the x-ray problem. Lots of glue for next xmas.
According to John T.M. Lyles, an engineer who works on megawatt and bigger amps and oscillators for the federal government at an installation in New Mexico, it takes > 8 KV to emit xrays that would be measurable or damaging.
contesting.com amps reflector has a nice email exchange on it, as does the Yahoo.com ham amps reflector.
NO, not every tube will emit xrays. EMITTING xrays is what's dangerous. Just because a ceramic / metal triode / tetrode is GENERATING them, if it doesn't escape the envelope, it's not emitting them.
Kind of like your microwave. It shouldn't be emitting microwaves, but it creates them.
Hope that makes sense, or at least makes my point.
--Toll_Free
I wonder if different kinds of tape would generate different amounts of x-rays depending on stickiness -- for example, duct tape or packing tape.
I suppose it's kind of hard to use tape in the vacuum of space since the cold also tends to ruin the stickiness almost immediately...
http://www.tenjou.net/