X-Ray

X-Ray

X-ray radiation (also spelled in English as X-ray(s), x-ray(s), xray(s), X ray(s), or, much less commonly, X-radiation), is a high-energy electromagnetic radiation. In many languages, it is referred to as Röntgen radiation, after the German scientist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, who discovered it on November 8, 1895 and named it X-radiation to signify an unknown type of radiation.X-ray wavelengths are shorter than those of UV rays and longer than those of gamma rays. There is no universally accepted, strict definition of the bounds of the X-ray band. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 nanometers to 10 picometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz (3×1016 Hz to 3×1019 Hz) and energies in the range 100 eV to 100 keV, respectively. X-rays are widely used in medical diagnostics (e.g., checking for broken bones) and material science (e.g., identification of some chemical elements and detecting weak points in construction materials.

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