[News] X-rays from Scotch Tape!

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A new way to make sticky tape see-through | Oddly Enough | Reuters

 

"If you unroll the tape on your office desk in ambient conditions you only get visible light. You don't get X-rays," he added. This is because gases in the air slow down the electrons that produce the X-rays.

 

"What always makes X-rays in general is electrons that are moving very fast and suddenly get stopped," Camara, a physicist, said.

 

"They are flying from one side of the tape to the other as you separate them. You get something like a miniature lightning strike."

 

This property might be used to make nuclear fusion, Camara and his team said. All it would take is about 10 times as much energy as was produced during the experiment, he said.

 

It might be possible to unroll the tape even faster to get the effect, Camara said.

 

"It's just an energy issue. We have managed to get X-rays with this. If you could go another factor of 10 you could get that much more energy and fusion would be proof of that much energy," he said.