Mr. Tesla on the Roentgen Rays (Sep. 18, 1896)

According to statements recently published, the Röntgen rays are now declared, by M. Nikola Tesla, to be material particles. M. Tesla states that the electrical conditions within the tube from which the rays issue produce absolute particles. He further says he can feel the effects of these particles striking against his eye, and has noted the sensation produced when they come in contact with his brain. He says: There is little doubt now that a cathodic stream within a bulb is composed of small particles of matter thrown off at great velocity from the electrode. The velocity probably obtained can be estimated, and fully accounts for the mechanical and heating effects produced by the impact against the wall or obstacle opposed to the bulb. It is furthermore an accepted view that the projected lumps of matter act as inelastic bodies, like innumerable infinitesimal bullets. It can be shown that the velocity of the stream may be as much as 100 kilos. a second, or even more. But matter moving with such great velocity must surely penetrate great thicknesses of the obstruction in its path, if the laws of mechanical impact are at all applicable to a cathodic stream. I have so much familiarised myself with this view that, if I had no experimental evidence, I would not doubt that some matter is projected through the thin wall of a vacuum tube. The exit from the latter is, however, the more likely to occur, as the lumps of matter must be shattered into still much smaller particles by the impact. From my experiments it appears that the lumps or molecules are indeed shattered into fragments or constituents so small as to make them lose entirely some physical properties possessed before the impact. The matter composing the cathode stream is, continues M. Tesla in his letter, reduced to matter of some primary form heretofore not known, as such velocities and such violent impacts have probably never been studied or even attained before these extraordinary manifestations were observed. The important fact pointed out early by Röntgen and confirmed by subsequent researches, namely, that a body is the more opaque to the rays the denser it is, cannot be explained as satisfactorily by any other assumption than that of the rays being streams of matter, in which case such simple relation between opacity and density would necessarily exist. This relation is the more important in its bearing upon the nature of the rays, as it does not at all exist in light-giving vibrations, and should consequently not be found to so marked a degree and under all conditions with vibrations presumably similar to and approximating in frequency the light vibrations. An almost crucial test of the existence of material streams is afforded by the formation of shadows in space at a distance from the bulb. Such shadows could not be formed under the conditions described except by streams of matter.