After the German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen discovered X-rays in 1895, the scientific community of the time set out to search for other similar radiations. When many people are searching, it is not uncommon for something to be found, and that is how René-Prosper Blondlot, a professor at the University of Nancy, found N-rays. More than 100 scientists corroborated his data, and about 300 articles were written about this mysterious radiation. However, despite the prizes awarded to Blondlot, it was soon discovered that N-rays did not exist.
The Discovery of N-Rays
The early years of the twentieth century were especially interesting for the world of physics. It seemed that the pieces needed to assemble the scientific puzzle that represented the structure of the universe were finally being found, and practically every day an interesting discovery was made. The understanding of the different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, including the discovery of X-rays in 1895 by the German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, had predisposed the scientific community to accept without too much reservation the results of almost any experiment in this field. And so the mysterious N-rays appeared on the scene.
As we know, Roentgen had discovered that a barium plate emitted fluorescent light whenever the cathode ray tube was turned on, even though the physicist had covered it with black cardboard. It was evident that some type of radiation was passing through the cardboard, but Roentgen had no idea what kind of rays were causing this phenomenon. After a few weeks, he decided to call them “X”, while waiting for a better name to occur to him (something that, apparently, never happened). The X-rays were reproduced in laboratories around the world, and Heinrich Rudolf Hertz himself, the highest authority of the time on electromagnetic phenomena, tried to demonstrate – unsuccessfully – whether X-rays were waves or particles. To do this, he tried to measure the intensity of the spark produced by electrodes arranged along orthogonal axes. He never succeeded.
However, he laid the groundwork for a French physicist named René-Prosper Blondlot, a professor at the University of Nancy, to try to repeat his experiments but with some variations in 1903. Instead of measuring the intensity of the spark, Blondlot set out to measure its luminosity. But while intensity was a magnitude that could be measured with relative precision, luminosity was something completely subjective, and Blondlot could only measure it by eye. This difference was the origin of one of the most embarrassing episodes in the history of physics: after a few trials, René-Prosper Blondlot discovered N-rays.
A Marvelous New Radiation
The Frenchman observed that the rays that produced the increase in brightness in the spark were deviated when passing through a quartz prism. X-rays did not behave that way, so Blondlot, blindly trusting his eyes (ha), announced with great fanfare the discovery of a new type of radiation, which he called N-rays in honor of his university. Given the special state of enthusiasm that the scientific community had regarding this type of discovery, the new ray caused a sensation among physicists. More than forty of Blondlot's colleagues reproduced his experiences, and in more than 100 laboratories equipment and scientists were set up to work with N-rays. In 1906, only three years after the discovery of N-rays, more than three hundred articles appeared published in the most prestigious scientific journals and dissemination bodies.
The N-rays were impressive, almost from fiction. Among the most relevant characteristics of the new radiation were the manifest power to penetrate materials (metals and others) that were opaque to the rest of the spectrum. In addition, N-rays could be stored in some bodies such as quartz, iron, and seawater, which in this way became emitters of N-rays. Other substances, such as aluminum, wood, paper, or paraffin, were not suitable for storing them. Several natural sources of N-rays were found, including the Sun and human beings themselves, including the dead. The matter began to get strange when Blondlot discovered that people's visual acuity increased when the subject was in the presence of a source of N-rays.
After this announcement, a biophysics professor at the same university, named Charpentier, discovered that the fantastic rays played a fundamental role in the functioning of the human body: they were emitted by the brain and decreased when the patient was anesthetized. Some even claimed that the main effect of anesthesia was precisely to reduce the emission of N-rays from the patient, producing the state of sedation. Another specialist, named Fabre, had his five minutes of fame when he published a study relating the emission of N-rays to the contractions of women in labor: according to Fabre, the rays increased in intensity with the rhythm of the contractions.
The Critics and the Prize
As usual in these cases, some clever people tried to steal fame from Blondlot. Gustave Le Bon swore that he had discovered N-rays seven years earlier, while a certain Audollet claimed that Charpentier had stolen from him the discovery that living beings emitted this radiation. The specialists in paranormal topics, as could not be otherwise, also had claims to make about the authorship of the discovery of the esoteric rays. Anyway, to make it clear that the discoverer had been Blondlot, the French Academy of Sciences awarded him in 1904 the Leconte prize, endowed with 50,000 francs. Incredibly, the committee that awarded it included, among others, the great mathematician Poincaré and Nobel laureate Becquerel.
The Unraveling
But when Blondlot was beginning to dream of a Nobel Prize, the matter of N-rays began to spring leaks. First, not a few physicists outside France had failed to reproduce Blondlot's experiments. In most laboratories, N-rays could not be seen. Blondlot, in a statement, explained that “some people can observe at first glance and without difficulty the increase in brightness produced by N-rays in a small light source; for others, these phenomena are beyond their visual reach and only after a certain period of practice do they manage to see it clearly and observe it with confidence. The smallness of these effects, and the delicacy of their observation conditions, should not hinder the study of a radiation that until now was unknown.” If you can't see them, it's because you're not trained. Hmm.
Seeking to explain this difference in results, Blondlot “discovered” the existence of N1 rays, a radiation -in some way- opposite to N-rays, which decreased their luminosity, making observation difficult. And this was the straw that broke the camel's back. Many European physicists had been cautious with Blondlot's first discovery, but the postulate of N1 rays was too much, and they manifested themselves openly skeptical. Heinrich Rubens, a physicist who had been looking for N-rays for years, proposed a plan to unravel the mystery. Rubens contacted an American physicist specializing in optics (and recognized for his successes detecting frauds), named Wood, and asked him to visit Blondlot's laboratory.
Wood's Visit
Wood was very shrewd in his visit. First, he introduced himself speaking exclusively in German. This made Blondlot and his assistant, M. L. Wirtz, feel free to speak among themselves in French, believing that Wood would not understand a word of what they said. Obviously, Wood understood and spoke French perfectly. The first test he proposed was to identify whether there was an increase in brightness while he interrupted -randomly and without Blondlot seeing- the source of the rays. Blondlot succeeded in detecting the increase when the rays were NOT reaching their destination and vice versa, something absolutely opposite to what he should have been seeing.
Nevertheless, Wood said nothing and continued with the tests. Next, the American placed a metal filing cabinet -supposed emitter of N-rays- behind the head of an observer. The guinea pig claimed to read the time without difficulty on a clock located at a great distance, a fact that proved the ability of N-rays to increase human visual capacity. In one of the trials, Wood replaced the metal filing cabinet with a wooden bookshelf. The subject claimed to continue seeing the hands clearly.
The last experiment included an aluminum prism, which should divert a source of N-rays so that Wirtz could “see” them at a certain point in the laboratory, which was in darkness. Wood simply put the prism in his coat pocket, despite the fact that Wirtz insisted that he was seeing N-rays. At one point, the assistant suspected that something strange was happening, and made the mistake of telling Blondlot in French, “I think the American has touched something, I cannot see the ray.” But at that moment Wood had put the prism back in its place and really Wirtz should have seen the emission of N-rays.
That same night, Wood wrote an article for the prestigious scientific journal Nature, in which he explained his experiences with N-rays in Blondlot's laboratory. The few who still believed in the phenomenon outside France stopped doing so, and when confronted by the scientific community, the Frenchman did not hesitate to assert that the author of the deception was his assistant Wirtz. Blondlot abandoned research and fell into madness in his last years.
Legacy
The story of N-rays demonstrates that even science can make mistakes. It is natural that this is so, because it is not at all impossible to mis-measure or misinterpret the results of an experiment. The good thing about the scientific method is that it provides its own “antibodies” to detect this type of error. And if not, ask Blondlot.
