Category: Scientific Discoveries

• The "Invisible Light" (X-Rays)

  This theory held that X-rays, almost immediately after their discovery in 1895, would destroy privacy by allowing authorities to see through clothing, walls, and ordinary concealment. In stronger versions, the new rays would become a tool of the state: a way to watch, search, and expose citizens without consent. The documented record clearly shows that fear of X-rays as privacy-destroying “see-through” technology appeared almost at once in 1896, including public jokes, poems, and anxious commentary about clothing and modesty. What remained exaggerated was the idea that governments already possessed practical systems for mass X-ray surveillance through walls and across ordinary distances.