BLONDLOT, René
In 1903, French physicist René Blondlot announced a new form of radiation. A visitor to his laboratory devised a simple test of what observers thought they saw.
Blondlot called the supposed radiation N-rays, after the French city of Nancy. His demonstrations depended on observers noticing small changes in brightness. Other laboratories had trouble reproducing the effect.
The American physicist Robert W. Wood visited Blondlot’s laboratory in 1904. During a demonstration in a dark room, he removed a prism the experiment relied on. The observer continued reporting readings. Wood described the visit in a letter to Nature, giving readers a way to see why the observations had failed as evidence for a new form of radiation.
A related topic is N-rays Fraud.
Bibliography:
- Wood, R. W. (1904). The n-Rays. Nature, 70, 530–531.
- Blondlot, R. (1904). Rayons N. Gauthier-Villars.
— EC Research Team