422 History of Luminescence 



work of all but five has been connected with radiation, using this 

 term in its broadest sense to include both waves and particles. 



Thus, radioluminescence studies have led to a most effective and 

 an almost unbelievably sensitive method of detecting the ultimate 

 particles of matter or units of energy which make up the universe. 

 Simple luminescence monitors can now determine the amount of 

 radiation to which a human being has been exposed." In every 

 hospital, the action of X-rays on a photographic plate is intensified 

 by the radioluminescence of a backing screen, and the television 

 set would not have become a household article without cathodolumi- 

 nescence to form the picture. As no laboratory is complete without 

 its cathode ray oscillograph to make visible on a thin film of phos- 

 phor the movement of a beam of electrons, it is apparent that radio- 

 luminescence is now one of the most common phenomena in every 

 facet of modern life. 



22 See J. H. Schulman and H. W. Etzel, Small volume dosimeter for X-ray and 

 gamma-rays. Science 118: 184-186, 1953. 



