ABSTRACT
The best way to describe radiation is to say it is energy in the form of waves or particles travelling through matter. This energy includes electromagnetic radiation, such as radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma rays. Other scientists such as William Morgan, Humphrey Davey, Michael Faraday and Fernando Sanford who had previously worked with discharge tubes had unwittingly observed the glow from X-rays, but it was Roentgen who first considered these emissions as rays because they were seen to travel in straight lines, producing shadows when passing through more dense materials, such as metal and even bone. The introduction of X-ray imaging quickly revolutionised medical diagnostics and provided new forms of treatment. Electricians and physicists speculated on the nature of these new and strange rays, some thinking them to be vortices in the ether and Thomas Edison suggested them to be acoustical or gravitational waves.
