Interesting science fact of the week.
Sellotape can generate X-Rays.
Apparently when sticky tape is peeled off (not Elastoplast on a cut finger, but the tape you use to wrap my presents with) X-Rays can be produced.
Known as triboluminescence and seen in the form of light, this can occur whenever a solid (often a crystal) is crushed, rubbed or scratched. It is a long-known, if somewhat mysterious, phenomenon, seen by Francis Bacon in 1605. He noticed that smashing sugar lumps with a hammer (in the dark) produces a spark.
Perhaps when opposite charges are broken apart they emit energy in its various forms in the electromagnetic spectrum including X-rays and light. A team of Russian scientists discovered this in the 1950s but no one believed them until another team of the University of California replicated the experiment in 2007. They even found that if they put a plastic window in a vacuum chamber, they can produce an X-ray of a finger using a dental X-ray detector.
So, next time you’re tearing apart Sellotape to wrap up my presents, just think you’re generating X-rays. No one knows the complete reason why this happens. The more I know the more I realise how little I know.
Nelder News
The third book in the Flying Crooked series of SF novellas, Kepler’s Son is due out later this year. The fourth volume, Vanished Earth, has been written and going through beta-readers. Thanks to Frances Gow, Mark Iles and Reb – a genius Russian émigré whose own literary fiction will be out soon. When descendants of Suppose We return to find their mother planet, Earth, it’s gone! What happened? Is that it hiding inside Jupiter? Loved doing the research for this.
Also published recently was ALIEN EXIT a science fiction first-contact novel as an ebook only https://mybook.to/alienexit
Revised Xaghra’s Revenge set in present-day and 16th Century Malta and Gozo now retitled as Vengeance Island http://mybook.to/VIsland
Escaping Reality – humorous thriller • http://hyperurl.co/nyjaiv
Hot Air – thriller set in Mallorca • http://hyperurl.co/di4y0h
ARIA: Left Luggage – infectious amnesia scifi • smarturl.it/1fexhs
ARIA: Returning Left Luggage • http://hyperurl.co/tgtid6
ARIA: Abandon Luggage • http://hyperurl.co/26trxv
Incremental – 25 surreal short stories • http://mybook.to/Incremental
Suppose We -science fiction space exploration • https://mybook.to/SupposeWe
The Chaos of Mokii ebook at https://mybook.to/Kaos
Home • http://geoffnelder.com
Facebook • http://bit.ly/2DnAmRS
Twitter @geoffnelder
