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In 17th century an English scholar named Francis Bacon noted that sugar sparkles when scraped in the dark . In 1953 Russian scientists reported that from tape they had detected electrons energetic enough to emit X-rays but unfortunately nobody ever believed them .
Today scientists has confirmed that X-ray does emit from pulling a sticky tape. The phenomenon of generating visible light by moving contacting surfaces relative to one another is now known as triboluminescence.
The latest research has been carried out by scientist Seth Putterman and his colleagues at the University of California . They placed an off-the-shelf roll of Scotch tape on a ball bearing mounted on stiff spring leaves and attached the free end of the tape to a cylinder turned by an electric motor.
They then used a solid-state detector and a radiofrequency antenna to measure any X-rays and radio waves given off from the point at which the tape left the roll, and calculated the force needed to peel the tape via induction measurements of the leaves’ displacement. The whole set up was placed in a vacuum chamber.
From the experiment,They have proved that X-ray emitted in the form of intense bursts some billionth of a second long from pulling a sticky tape but the details of what is occurring on the molecular scale are not known , in part because the Scotch adhesive remains a trade secret.
Xray photo taken from scotch tape pulling machine
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/r63e5y3Z3R8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Today scientists has confirmed that X-ray does emit from pulling a sticky tape. The phenomenon of generating visible light by moving contacting surfaces relative to one another is now known as triboluminescence.
The latest research has been carried out by scientist Seth Putterman and his colleagues at the University of California . They placed an off-the-shelf roll of Scotch tape on a ball bearing mounted on stiff spring leaves and attached the free end of the tape to a cylinder turned by an electric motor.
They then used a solid-state detector and a radiofrequency antenna to measure any X-rays and radio waves given off from the point at which the tape left the roll, and calculated the force needed to peel the tape via induction measurements of the leaves’ displacement. The whole set up was placed in a vacuum chamber.
From the experiment,They have proved that X-ray emitted in the form of intense bursts some billionth of a second long from pulling a sticky tape but the details of what is occurring on the molecular scale are not known , in part because the Scotch adhesive remains a trade secret.
Xray photo taken from scotch tape pulling machine


<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/r63e5y3Z3R8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>