What can't x rays show?

Answer 1

An X-ray can go through anything. The question is how much of it does that X-ray have to penetrate? An X-ray is a form of high energy electromagnetic radiation, and it has excellent penetrating power. It is only material with a high density that can shield us against them, and lead is a good example. Concrete is also pretty good, and it's cheap and readily available as a building material.

X-rays come in a range of energies, and some (the higher energy ones) are better at going through stuff than others. X-rays penetrate all things, but go farther into things of lower density. It's a "probability" thing that determines how far X-rays will penetrate. We talk about a half-thickness of a shielding material, and that is the thickness of that material that is required to reduce a given amount of a specific radiation by half. You can see that doubling that amount of shielding will not stop all the radiation, but will still allow a quarter of it to get through.

When chosing a material to shield against X-rays, things with a high density (like lead) will be more effective than less dense materials. Consideration must be given to the source and how it's being used when designing shielding around the X-ray generator.

Answer 2

It depends on the power of the generator, but generally speaking an x-ray is a type of radiation, which is generally shielded against by lead.

Any sufficiently dense material over a sufficient distance could serve as a shield, however - as you add thicker shielding the protection against radiation becomes exponential.

However, usually lead is used because it's dense (at the molecular level, meaning there isn't a lot of space for radiation to slip past) and cheap. The thickness of it varies on the type of generator, ie the power behind it, but generally the more power the thicker the lead.

Answer 3

LEAD