50

FRASIER’S FRIDAY FACT

Volume L

2/9/2018

Hello Everyone,

Welcome back to FFF! I can't believe we have reached fact number 50 today. 50 weeks of cherishing knowledge and continuing to build our readily available mental database of useless information to use at parties.

Just the other day, I was thinking about x-rays. I thought to myself, "Sure, I know about x-rays. But are there any other rays out there? What about Y and Z rays?"

I guess I expected a more complicated answer, but the "x" in x-ray stands for "x-radiation." Wilhelm Röntgen, the discoverer of x-radiation, named it x-radiation simply to signify an "unknown" type of radiation. To the guy's credit, though, in many other languages, x-rays are known as "Röntgen Rays," to honor his discovery, which he earned the Nobel Prize for in 1901.

Stay curious, my friends.

Fraish