WEBVTT - Selects: How X-Rays Work 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:03.000 M Hey everyone, it's me Josh, and for this week's 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:05.760 s y s K Selects, I've chosen our episode on 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:10.200 X rays. It's from December two thousand fourteen, because what's 0:00:10.200 --> 0:00:14.560 more Christmas Eve than discussing electrons changing orbits. I love 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:16.799 this one because it's a great example that me and 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:19.760 Chuck can do anything we put our minds to. It's 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:22.840 just some great bare knuckle s y s K explaining. 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:26.439 So I hope you enjoy our episode how x rays work. 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:34.199 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:43.000 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:46.200 Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant as always, and there's 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:50.080 Jerry over there fiddling around with stuff. So it's stuff 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:53.400 you should know the podcast, not stuff you should know. 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:57.280 The movie. That's right. You know, we were sworn to 0:00:57.320 --> 0:00:59.480 secrecy about that. They'd be a good movie, that'd be 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:01.320 a bad movie. I don't know, man, it could go 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:05.880 either way. I always see I imagine it like Strange Brew. 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.440 Oh yeah, yes they could. Uh, they could base it 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:11.880 on the Stuff you Should Know, Tell all book I'm writing. 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:15.080 Oh yeah, that would be exciting, that would be very exciting. 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:17.759 I'm looking forward to that book like a Lifetime movie 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:20.800 of the Week. Do you like, um switch people's names 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:26.840 like a my um Joe Joe Clack? Yeah, exactly. No. Uh, 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:29.840 it's sort of like, uh like did you see the 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:33.000 Say by the Bell movie? Oh? Yeah, I didn't Screech 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:36.480 write a book. It was based on a book by Screech. Right, Yeah, 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:38.959 it wasn't it like all sex and drugs and stuff. 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:40.880 Oh it was. You know, it was a bunch of 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:44.080 teenagers in Hollywood, So sure there was some of that 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:45.880 in there, but it was I didn't read the book. 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:49.840 But the movie was bad and not nearly as salacious 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:52.360 as he wanted it to be. Right. I remember a 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:55.040 lot of people being disappointed, and I remember, I mean 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:57.880 I recalled it like two weeks ago when people were 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:00.559 talking about it when it came out. It's stunk. Watch Emily, 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:04.120 and I'll watch some of those, um just terrible, terrible 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:07.600 biopics occasionally on TV and it's it can be fun. 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:13.080 Like we watched the who was the one actor? Brittany Murphy? 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:15.960 The Brittany Murphy story? Oh really, does she have a 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:17.680 heck of a story. Is she alive still or did 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:21.799 she die? She passed away because under kind of weird circumstances, 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:24.720 because she and her husband both passed away within weeks 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:27.359 of each other, and there were all these strange claims 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:33.160 that her house was poisoned, that they were poisoned, and um, yeah, 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:36.560 it was. It was fun. What's your take on it? Oh? 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:39.800 I don't know. You just that the movie wasn't very good. 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:45.600 Who played Brittany Murphy? Do you remember someone who didn't 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:49.560 look very much like Brittney Murphy Julie Bowen. But I 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:51.880 was right. The Ashton Kutcher guy was pretty good, though. 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:54.160 I gotta say Steve Jobs played him. They should have 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:57.680 just gotten Ashton Kutcher to play himself. He's not doing much. 0:02:57.800 --> 0:02:59.560 He's not my two and a half men. I don't 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:02.240 know that got to require fifteen minutes of work a week. 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.040 He's selling cameras. Do you remember when the whole two 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:06.799 and a half man thing was going down? We were 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:09.400 in l A And for the one and only time 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:12.760 in my entire life, I see John Cryer that day. Oh, 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:16.079 during the Charlie Sheen meltdown, like the day of the meltdown, 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:18.800 like it happened at night, and within eight hours I 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:22.160 saw John cryer for the first time in Personette McDonald's 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:25.000 did you heal Duckie? No? I left him alone. He 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.640 looks stressed out. Well, yeah, he's probably like, my career 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:30.600 is going down the tubes, but little did he know 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:35.240 he's a survivor. His career is just fine. So X rays. Yeah, 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.800 that's what we're talking about, right, Yep, the lightest part 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:41.720 of this podcast. I like this one. This one. It's 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:44.640 one of those things where if you can just hang 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:48.680 on by your fingernails, it can click and then you 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:50.840 lose it again, but that means that it could click 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:54.760 again later on. That's what I like about it. Good. 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:57.240 I'll leave that to you. I got lots of other 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:01.040 stuff about it, but I totally understand good. Good. Um, So, 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:03.920 have you ever broken anything and needed an X ray 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:06.200 or has it all just been dental stuff? You know? Dude, 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:09.280 never broken a bone? Knock on wood? Yeah, I mean 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:13.800 I've had My injuries were always um stitches. I was 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:18.279 always getting busted open rocks and sprinklers, and I was 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:21.040 always getting cut and sewed back up. But I never 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:23.960 broke a bone. That's great. Yeah, you should probably knock 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:25.719 on wod one more time, just to be safe. Yeah. 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:28.400 Uh so, yeah, all of my X rays to have 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:30.480 been like just going to the dentist or whatever. You 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:32.520 never had a bone broken. I don't want to say, 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:34.600 because I I don't even know if knocking on wood 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:36.880 will do it on lambing it ikea. It would just 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:41.680 be so horribly interesting if both of us broke a 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:43.839 bone after this. Yeah, and we're at the age where 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:45.880 like you should break bones when your kid were you 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:48.120 like whatever, I get a cast at this age, it's 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:51.440 it's a drag. Yeah. I remember reading like a Tom 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:54.960 Clancy novel and like some kid got an arm torn 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.120 off or whatever, and one of the surgeons was like, 0:04:57.320 --> 0:04:59.360 if the arms in the same room as the kid, 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:02.400 it can be yield. That doesn't hold true in your 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:08.359 Tom Clancy's age now, So, um, you are familiar with 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:10.320 X rays, so you've seen them before You've watched the 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:12.880 er surely, Yeah, I mean I've had X rays for 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:15.159 like the dental ones, like you said, and then um, 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.960 just other various like uh like chess X rays for 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:21.080 sicknesses and things like that, which I think maybe a 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:24.560 little frivolous, to be honest, Yeah, and kind of dangerous 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:28.719 really conceivably, which we'll get into later. But um did 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:30.960 you were you familiar with X rays it all beyond that? 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:35.479 Did you know that they were invented or discovered accidentally? Yeah? 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:37.720 I did know that. Um, I did not. That's one 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:39.000 of the few things I know. I thought I saw 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:41.920 a little like Quickie short on something like it might 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:44.800 have been actually Science Channel. I looked all over. The 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:48.840 most I could find was a dude on siemens Um 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:52.120 just describing it in the most flat affic. I've watched 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:55.840 his video. Yeah, I got to five and five wind 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:57.720 Low and I was like, forget this. Yeah, if I've 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:00.240 never loaded for me, I watched the other fourteen though, 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.360 and the whole time I was going, man, these are 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:05.920 a minute long, please join them all together into one 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.839 six minute video. No, it was so weird. Yeah, it 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:11.039 was pretty silly. But and he was he was good. 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:14.960 He was just very dry. Yeah, and they spent zero 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:19.720 pennies on any kind of soundtrack or anything like if 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:23.480 he grabs papers, you hear papers wrestling in the classrooms. 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:27.440 It was. It was pretty straightforward. Yes, but that's a 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:32.360 very wind about, roundabout way of getting to uh. It's 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:39.000 discovering by German physicist named Wilhelm uh Rundgan, and he 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:42.960 was testing whether cathode rays could pass through glass and 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:46.880 he saw that the fluorescent screen was glowing when he 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:49.800 turned on his electron electron beam, which wasn't a big deal, 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:52.520 but he was like, wait, this got cardboard around it, right, 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:55.440 there shouldn't be any visible light escaping, which is silly 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:57.000 to think of. Now, well, yeah it is, but you 0:06:57.000 --> 0:06:59.160 have to put yourself in his shoes like X rating 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:01.919 had been to discovered because he was literally on the 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:05.000 verge of discovering them, right then that's right, and uh yeah, 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:06.840 So he was like, this is very curious that this 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:09.800 is fluorescing. Yeah, and he noticed other things were glowing, 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:14.680 and eventually he started putting other objects between the tube 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:17.240 and the screen. They glowed the screen did that is 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:20.240 finally put his hand there. I read his wife's hand. 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:23.440 Oh really, he's like, either come in here for a second, 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:28.600 I want you to try something. It saw bones projected 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:32.840 and then I guess probably poo pooed his pants. It's 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:34.920 a man, I think, come onto something here. Yeah, it 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:39.280 was really that quickly. He was like immediately the application 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:41.320 was clear. It wasn't one of those things where it 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:44.480 took twenty years. He's like, hold on, you can see bones. 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:47.080 This could be really helpful, and he want a Nobel 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:50.920 prize very rightfully, so the first one ever for physics. 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:55.000 And he named him X rays because he didn't know 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:57.160 what the heck it was, no exactly kind of signing 0:07:57.160 --> 0:07:59.600 your name. He probably right. I think he assumed that 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:03.320 later um future scientists would fill in the blanks, but 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:04.960 they were like, no, we're cool with X rays. Well, 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:07.120 he probably thought that someone would eventually call it like 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:10.600 the Rundkin ray for something. He wasn't much of a 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:13.640 self promoter. He was just like all this calum X 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:16.480 rays as a placeholder. And he didn't patent any anything, 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:19.400 you know. He never like made money off that. Uh. 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:21.600 And then just as his wife had hand cancer as 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:25.920 a result. Really, oh, I was laughing, but no she did. 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:27.440 That would be it was. It was just a joke. 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:29.720 You can proceed with the la plus I've never heard 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:33.400 of hand cancer. It's got to be out there. Uh. 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:35.000 And then a couple of years later they were already 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:37.040 using it um in the Balkan War was the first 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.040 time it was really put to practical use. The First 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:43.360 Balkan War, the one around World War One. Well no, 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.320 oh that Baltimore. Um, I didn't know that existed until 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:51.160 just now. Yeah, and they said we can see bullets 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.040 and trapnel and stuff now, um, which is helpful. It 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:58.360 is extremely helpful. So like this guy Rundkin discovers X 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:02.520 rays and their most practical application in one fell swoop basically, 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:06.680 and a little further study revealed the X rays are 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:13.160 actually just another part of the electromagnetic spectrum, of which 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:18.960 radio waves, microwaves what we call visible light. Um, what 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:22.760 else is on there? Uh? Well, I've got handy wallet 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:29.200 electromagnetic spectrum card, and X rays fall between gamma rays 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:33.000 and ultraviolet rays on that spectrum, which are all below. 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:35.920 Well you say below, I don't know if it's it's 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:40.280 not really an above or below situation visible light and 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.040 then infrared, microwave and radio waves, so it would be 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:45.560 a higher or lower frequency, because that's how the whole 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:48.640 thing is divided. Yeah. So, like the visible spectrum of 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:54.240 light consists of electromagnetic radiation that has a frequency a 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:58.360 wavelength that our eyes are sensitized too, so we can 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:01.240 pick up visible light. There's plenty of other stuff on 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.880 the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, and all of it is 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:08.640 delineated by the frequency the wavelengths. So at the highest 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:12.080 end you have gamma rays. They're like, yeah, that means 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:14.920 the squiggly line is very close together exactly. And then 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:17.960 on the farthest end you have radio waves are like, 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:23.199 and that means the squiggly line as far apart exactly, 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:27.560 And that is called chuck science. That's good stuff. Yeah. 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:30.440 So back in my wallet X raight right next to 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:34.400 the what else you have in there? I just have 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:39.480 my PEPs Blue Ribbon membership, which actually do do you really? Yeah, 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:43.400 but I've had it for like twenty years. When you 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:47.720 you got it when you're like seven eight, flatter me. So, uh, 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:52.400 X rays fall, I guess we're about in the well, Yeah, 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:54.520 the higher and they have a higher frequency as far 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.760 as the electro magnetic spectrum goes. But the point is 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:00.839 is that it is ultimately the same thing to It's 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:04.120 a type of electro magnetic energy that is carried on 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:07.040 a photon, which is a particle of what we would 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:10.320 call light. Yeah, and we talked about photons a plenty 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:15.240 in the show, and uh, the same, like photons produce 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:18.920 the visible light that we can see photons blast out 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:21.920 from the Sun. How long does it take? Like it 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:24.199 takes like a hundred years to get from the core 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:26.360 to the surface and then like eight minutes to get 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:29.079 from the surface to Earth. That's right, man, that's I 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:32.400 love that fact. So this is the only part I understand, 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:35.400 So I'll lead with it. If you want to imagine 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:38.920 um an atom, a nucleus of an atom and rings 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:45.559 around that adiom atium and adam as orbitals. Uh, when 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:50.120 an electron drops to a lower orbital, it releases energy 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:52.880 in the form of a photon, and the electron will 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:55.680 always drop to the lower orbital. That's right. So like 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.199 if an orbital is if an electron is kicked off 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:00.720 of a lower orbital and allow trn in the higher 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:03.760 orbital goes yet and drops down to that one. Yes, 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:05.559 and depending on how far it drops is going to 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.680 determine the energy level of that photon. That it's that 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:11.320 it releases his energy when it drops, right, yeah, because 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:13.640 it doesn't have to, you know, drop more than one orbital. 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:16.240 You can skip down I don't even know how far, 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:18.400 but a long way, yeah, I can. And like you 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:21.480 said that, the greater the distance between the two orbitals 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:24.600 are the greater the energy differential, the greater the energy 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:28.240 that photon when released will have. Right, that's right. And 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:31.360 as we said, photons are the energy carriers of the 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:36.000 electromagnetic spectrum. And depending on that energy or the frequency 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:39.920 the wavelength of that photon, that determines what kind of 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:43.120 photon it is, right, whether it's a radio photon or 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:46.400 a an X ray photon, or a photon that we 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:49.640 can see that's in the visible spectrum. That's right. Uh, 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:53.400 Sometimes when these photons are flying around, they will collide 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:58.400 with other atoms, and sometimes those atoms absorb that photons 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:01.720 energy and then kick it up to that higher level again, right, 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:04.600 But it has to be from what I understand, and 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:06.800 I saw that there's like of course it's science, so 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:11.520 there's like atomic science, so there's little exceptions did this 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:14.440 and that. But from what I could see, Chuck, there 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:19.640 is the energy of that photon has to exactly match 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:25.199 the energy differential between one orbital and another on an 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:28.040 atom so that it can kick it up, so that 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:31.120 it hits that one electron in the lower orbital kicks 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:34.200 it up to the higher orbital and thus transfers its energy, 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:38.280 which means that atom just absorbed that energy that that 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:41.280 photon was carrying. Right, But if it's a little less, 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:43.280 it's not going to have the energy to kick that 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:46.800 electron up, which makes sense to me, right. But if 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:49.080 it's a little more, this is what doesn't make sense 0:13:49.120 --> 0:13:52.319 to me. It doesn't kick the electron up, and then 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:56.760 the photon carries on in a diminished energetic state. It 0:13:56.880 --> 0:14:00.280 just doesn't do anything. It doesn't interact with that. It 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.720 has to be exactly, say, like the energy differential between 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:06.760 orbits is eight, So a photon has to have an 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.240 energy of eight or else it's not gonna do anything 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:14.920 with the atom, that's right, Okay, uh, And so depending 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:18.839 on the um. Well, let's say you have a radio wave. 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:21.200 They don't have very much energy, so they can't move 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:25.520 electrons between these orbitals. They just passed through things. X 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:29.640 rays are super powerful. There's lots of energy, so they 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:31.840 can pass through things, which is key if you want 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:35.080 to check out your bones from outside of your body. 0:14:35.280 --> 0:15:00.000 It is, so we're back chucking. You tantalized everybody by 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:03.880 saying that this, this difference in absorption is what produces 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:08.080 X rays, Right? Was that tantalizing? I was tantalized and 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:10.640 I even know it's coming. All right, that's how excited 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:14.840 I mean about X rays. So consider this, Like different 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:22.040 atoms have different atomic weights, they have different densities, they're 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:26.120 just different. Like different atoms are different, and atoms also 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:31.520 have what are called differences in radiological density. Okay, so 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:37.600 a really high energy, high atomic weight, very dense atom 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:40.600 is going to be able to absorb a lot of energy. 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:44.160 Smaller atoms that maybe are looser and have a lower 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:46.760 atomic weight are going to get kicked around by any 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:50.960 old photon that wants to come along. Yeah, and that's 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:52.880 that's key. Like I said, if you want to see 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:55.480 bones because you're soft tissue, if you've ever noticed when 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:57.840 you have an X ray, you'll see the bones, but 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:00.320 you know the rest is just sort of a grayish 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:04.520 black mess exactly because your soft tissue has smaller atoms. 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:08.920 Your bones, uh, calcium adams are much larger, so they're 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:12.640 gonna absorb those X ray photons. It's exactly right to 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:16.920 do it, really well exactly. So um imagine you have uh, 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:19.520 let's say, Chuck, let's go back and hang out with 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:22.120 Tuck Tuck. Right, Oh man, let's get back in the 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:33.840 way back when she's been a while. Okay, look at 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:35.800 him over there. So here we are in France in 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:39.360 this cave, um Tuck Tuck has his hand up against 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:42.480 the cave wall, as you'll see, and in his other 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:46.080 hand he's got that little straw filled with pigment, red pigment. 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:50.400 He's blowing it on his hand, right, And now that 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:53.760 he moves his hand away, there's the outline of his hand. 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:56.720 It's called a stencil, right exactly. He's just made an 0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:01.560 early stencil. He's like banks He basically like a caveman Banksy. 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:03.520 But if you look at the back of Tuk Tuk's hand, 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:05.080 don't get too close, but look at the back of 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:09.080 his hand, it's covered in red pigment, right, So if 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:11.520 you can, if you want to equate this to an 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:17.520 X ray, the hand absorbed all of that pigment, and 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.960 the stuff that passed through left the picture on the cave. 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:23.920 All that's kind of what happens with an X ray, 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:28.040 except with an X ray photograph. The X ray photons 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:33.480 are absorbed by the denser calcium rich bones and they 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.520 passed through the softer tissue. So the picture that we 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:40.959 have is the outline the silhouette of the bones because 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:44.040 the X rays made it through the tissue, didn't make 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:45.800 it through the bones. They made it through the tissue 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:48.640 and onto the X ray plate, which absorbed the picture 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:51.359 in negative. That's right. And I'm glad you said picture, 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:53.600 because that's all it is. On the other side of 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:56.320 the human being. You know that they're shooting the X 0:17:56.440 --> 0:18:00.639 ray at there's a camera and you're just gonna get 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.720 a regular negative, and they could make it a positive, 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:05.480 but they leave it as a negative because you really 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:09.439 don't need the positive image. Uh, And that's what they'll 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:11.919 put on that little screen to show you your cracked 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:15.800 femur exactly. And they can see the crack because some 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:17.720 of those X rays will make it through the gap, 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:21.160 that's right, right, So all you're seeing is the result 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:25.520 of X rays that made it through the tissue were 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:28.280 absorbed by the bone, so those don't make it to 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:30.600 the plate. The ones that make it to the plate 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:33.320 cause the chemical reaction that gives you your negative, your 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:36.080 X ray. And it's it's pretty simple, really like if 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:39.560 you think about it, at least in principle. It's also 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:44.960 extraordinarily difficult to conceive of. But if you if you 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:49.040 understand like the principle behind it, it makes uttering complete sense. Yeah. 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:51.960 And it's a pretty focused shot that they're using there. 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:54.399 It's not like they don't fill the entire room with 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:57.520 X rays. You know, They've got a thick lead shield 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:01.240 around the whole device, and and it, you know, contains 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:04.199 contains everything. It's got a little small window that's just 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:07.679 gonna let that narrow beam pass through, uh, through a 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:11.000 series of filters and basically hit you wherever they want 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:13.120 to hit you. Yeah. And the reason that the they 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:17.680 use lead is because lead is an extremely dense uh 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:21.360 yeah element, yes, right, sure, oh god, I hope so 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:24.640 with a with a very high atomic number, which means 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:27.200 it can absorb tons of energy. Right, Yeah, that's why 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:30.000 you're gonna wear a lead apron. Um if you're not, 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:32.280 you know, if you're getting your skull done, you're probably 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:34.200 gonna wear an apron in your chest. Let's say, sure, 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:37.840 so you're you're so, this lead is being bombarded with 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:41.160 X ray, photons and electrons and it's just taking it. 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:43.919 It's fine, and it's not being able to it's not 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:48.080 able to pass through because it doesn't have high enough energy. Um. 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:50.480 But yes, they when they put that little window in 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.760 the X ray generating machine, it passes right through there 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:57.440 in a concentrated beam. And Chuck, let's talk about the machine, right, 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:01.159 So and and this is basic what we use as 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:05.240 X ray machines is essentially what root Can was made, 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:09.520 what made was experimenting with when he accidentally discovered them. 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:12.160 Because if you look for X rays like they're they 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:16.000 propagate naturally. But I think like the X rays on 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:19.960 Earth come from humans. Really, Yeah, Like we generate a 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:23.199 lot of X rays. They don't. They don't come like 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:25.560 you don't find them normally on Earth. They're coming from 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:29.800 outer space to us, hence X ray astronomy. But the 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:33.760 ones here on Earth that are generated on Earth, they don't. 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:35.800 It's not like rocks put out X rays or something 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:40.160 like that. We do. We humans do. Humans and light 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:42.760 aprons put out X rays and they use this machine 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:45.320 like root Can made. Yeah, what you have in the machine, 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:48.679 you have an electrode pair, cathode, and an anode and 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:53.119 that's inside a good old fashioned glass vacuum tube, which, um, 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:55.400 it's amazing how vacuum tubes are still like the best 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:57.880 way to do many of these things. Well, it allows 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:00.199 things to travel at the speed of light easily. It's right, 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:03.199 and allows guitar amps to sound great. I didn't know 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:06.280 these vacuums and that Oh is that a cathode tube? Yeah? Yeah, 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:10.040 like a like the best amps are still made with 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.720 vacuum tubes. You can get solid state amps, but they're 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:14.919 just the sound isn't as rich, So it's kind of 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.119 like this old technology that's still superior. They're all pumped 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:20.760 out by hand by a ninety year old man in Tennessee, 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:26.640 Mr Marshall. Yes. Uh so. The cathode is a heated filament, 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:29.399 just like you might see in a light bulb, and 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:31.920 the machine's gonna pass a current through that and heat 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:35.200 that thing up, and then it's gonna spit electrons off 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:39.000 that surface, and it's gonna hit a disc made of 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:42.840 tungsten and it's gonna draw those across the tube. It's 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:45.479 basically the tube is sort of the key piece, right, 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:49.400 because you've got the positive and the and the negative 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:52.800 charge the cathode and the anode, right yeah. Um, and 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:57.720 that difference that electrical charge draws as electrons down to 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:00.800 the anode. Yeah, with a lot of force. Yeah, And 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:05.800 that forest means that when those electrons hit the tungsten anode, 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:09.639 it knocks a bunch of electrons off, creates a bunch 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:13.639 of X rays in the process, and um, you have 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:19.600 a whole box filled with X ray radiation. That's exactly 0:22:19.600 --> 0:22:21.439 what it is, like you're just I mean there, there 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:23.320 might as well be like a foot crank to this thing, 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:27.280 like an old sewing machine. For as as technologically advanced 0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:28.840 as it is, there may be for all I know, 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:32.760 I don't know what goes on in that other room, right, Yeah, 0:22:32.880 --> 0:22:35.880 there's some dude in there with like his right leg 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:38.680 is three times more muscular than his left leg because 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:42.200 that's the only one he uses. So um. In addition, 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:45.240