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X-Rays: From Discovery to Practical Application Essay

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X-rays
This is a scientific report on x-rays, it’s history, uses, implications and other relevant facts. More relevance will be given to its medical uses/ importance as it was the most beneficial trait that x-rays brought.
X-rays were discovered in 1895 when Wilhelm Conrad Röentgen was doing some experiments with electron beams in a gas discharge tube and observed a glow in one of his fluorescent screens whenever the electron beam was on.
It was a fact that fluorescent material usually glowed in reaction to magnetic radiation but the gas discharge tube was surrounded by heavy black cardboard which was assumed by Roentgen to block most of the radiation. Confused and curious, Roentgen then put several objects between the tube and the …show more content…

The denser areas are shown as white while the soft areas appear dark in the film but sometimes some organs may block x-rays from showing broken or cracked bones and for this reason CAT (Computer Axial Tomography) was invented. Firstly, the person requiring the scan is put inside of a scanner, which is a long tube-shaped machine and then x-rayed from all angles, after a computer puts all of the images together so that doctors can analyse them. CAT are mainly used for head and brain injuries and appropriate shielded should be provided to cover the areas not being x-rayed.
At the dentist the same principle applies, x-ray film is put in one side of the teeth and x-rays are shot through the jaw, metal is more absorbent than teeth and bones so any filling on the teeth would appear lighter in the x-ray film. Fig. 2
Exposure limits exist to prevent exposure and limit chronic exposure to “acceptable” levels because in fact there is no safe level of exposure as there is always a small probability of exposure being the cause of some ailments, like cancer. It is then recommended to keep levels of exposure “as low as reasonable achievable” (ALARA).
A person can safely get up to 300 simple x-rays a year or 5 CAT (Computed Axial Tomography) scans and the risk of developing cancer would only increase by 1% as in most cases the cells that get damaged due to radiation die prematurely. The amount of cell damage from an x-ray is many times less than

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