"N-ray" Phenomenon

i feel so uncreative about my titles -.-" but i figured it would make it easier to look for stuff here :)

N-ray Phenomenon

• "discovered" by French scientist, Prosper-René Blondlot, in 1903.
• subsequently found to be illusory.

what?

• changes in brightness of an electric spark in a spark gap placed in X-ray beam.
• Blondlot even managed to photograph the N-rays!
• many scientists even claimed to be able to detect rays from most substances (including the human body!)

but...

• no other researcher was able to reproduce Blondot's results.

worse still.

• when another physicist secretly changed the setup (removed essential prism from apparatus), experimenters still said that they observed N-rays.

so...

• N-rays was a purely subjective phenomenon
• cautions against the dangers of error due to experimenter bias. (patriotism)

questions/usage

• subjectivity in science
• certainty & accuracy in science
• is science any different from social sciences?

sources

• wiki: N-rays

\ \ / / bam.