X-Rays Emitted From Ordinary Scotch Tape

Maximum Prophet writes "When I was in High School, I built an X-Ray machine that (probably) didn't produce any X-Rays. I used an old vacuum tube and high voltage. Little did I know that simple triboluminescence would have enough energy to do useful work." The catch: you'll need to peel your tape in a vacuum, and have the x-ray film at the ready.

Re:In other news...

[MiKM]

You're probably thinking of black body radiation, which is decidedly different from this. For a black body to emit enough X-rays to do any useful work, it'd have to be pretty damn hot (something glowing red-hot is around 1000K). In other words, this seems to be an interesting discovery.

Re:Another fun fact

[corsec67]

Light bulbs also emit radiation.

Most of that tends to be in the visible/infrared/ultraviolet depending on the specific bulb.

Re:Can the article example serve as prior art?

[MozeeToby]

Publishing "Peeling transparent tape in a vacuum produces x-rays" is not the same as patenting "A mobile x-ray device with no power requirements, with x-rays being generated by peeling transparent tape"

Locked Away For 20+ Years

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The researchers and UCLA have applied for a patent covering such devices.

We will not see this technology being used to actually help people for 20+ years. The researchers have already been paid to discover this result in their salaries. Why should they be paid again on the backs of those who actually develop practical uses for this discovery? Of what benefit is it to society for this technology to be hoarded by a small few?

The patenting of scientific phenomena is a shameful institution that needs to be stopped. A university is not supposed to be a for profit institution.

Re:Can the article example serve as prior art?

[Anonymous Coward]

No they're not the same thing but the first should result in the second failing to get a patent.

Re:Can the article example serve as prior art?

[shotgunefx]

I'm not big on patents but seems to me they've taken a process, added a novel and non-trivial addition and made a "potentially" very practical invention. This is the kind of things patents were made for. If it were that obvious, wouldn't someone have done something with it in the last half of a century?

Now there may be other things that might speak to it's novelty, but from the article, seems fair to me.