How a suspicious physicist debunked the mass hysteria of this acclaimed ‘discovery’
Engineers are very good at designing systems to prove theories. Indeed, any modern physics laboratory could be said to be as much a temple to advanced engineering as it is to theory. But just because you are using all the latest engineering kit to prove your point, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are looking at the truth. As French physicist Prosper-René Blondlot found out, even the most finely engineered experiment can fall victim to wishful thinking.
The discovery of N-rays was announced to the world in 1903 to some considerable fanfare but no particular surprise. In the previous 10 years, invisible ultraviolet radiation, X-rays, radioactivity and electron (cathode) rays had all been discovered, so a new ray was certainly welcome to the party but not a shock.
In fact, it was thanks to Wilhelm Röntgen, who discovered X-rays, that Blondlot was in his lab. He had decided to attempt to polarise X-rays...