A world-famous wedding ring

[@zigarettenbruch6999]

"Danger was invented later" may be my new favorite quote! Ha!

[@grmpf]

Really summarises a lot of 19th-to-mid-20th-century experimental science.

[@SpiacyLos]

I have to hand it to them: they've seen through Tom's question.

[@Slikx666]

Now I can't write my comment. You did it better than I.

[@sputukgmail]

That’s a very in-sight-ful comment :)

[@bananawieldingorenji]

goddamnit. take your biscuits and get out

[@Slikx666]

@@bananawieldingorenji 🤔 Now that sounds like a prog rock album I'd like to listen to. 😄

[@benjaming7219]

The Answer in progress crew being quizzed always turns into comical chaos. Love it.

[@Balsiefen]

They are somehow so clever and so clueless at the same time...

[@pallasproserpina4118]

incredible that none of them know who kaiser wilhelm is, easily the most famous wilhelm, who this question happened to not be about

[@Nymaz]

Yeah I was thinking along a completely wrong track, that somehow Kaiser Wilhelm got the first bifocals or a new type of magnifying lens as a way to see things better (using his wife's ring as an example) and because of that he could read dispatches and maps better, making WWI more likely. In my defense the question was set in 1895 and Wilhelm became Kaiser in 1888 so it was in the same time period.

[@ihathtelekinesis]

And when they mentioned Habsburg energy I was convinced Tom was going to tell them to think of a different family.

[@TaylerJDust]

The only Wilhelm I know is one of the bosses in Borderlands 2

[@trissylegs]

Was also think Wilhelm. Who also had a withered left arm which might mean something for wearing a wedding ring. He hides his left hand in photos and always wore gloves to try and hide and make his left arm look longer.

[@scottmartin5990]

Tom, did you get shown x-ray movies of people talking in one of your linguistics classes? They provided important evidence in the early understanding of phonetics. I think we spent at least 10 minutes analyzing them in phonetics class before someone made the connection and blurted out "Wait a minute! X-ray movies?!" And then we learned to our horror that the people in those films, mostly linguistics grad student volunteers, died of cancer soon after.

[@Makhiel]

Got it from the get go. I find it interesting that the English term is X-rays whereas I think most of Europe refers to them as "Röntgen rays" so perhaps having this association to a specific person is what clued me in.

[@alexj9603]

Interestingly, W.C. Röntgen himself named his discovery "X-Strahlen".

[@ZdzichuWiertara96]

Yup, in Polish I'd say "promienie rentgenowskie" for the rays, "zdjęcie rentgenowskie" or just "rentgen" for the picture

[@ConManAU]

And in Japanese they’re called “rentogen”.

[@Atlessa]

Fun fact: Röntgen himself called them "X Strahlen" (literally X-rays) and DIDN'T want them to mbe named after him. So OF COURSE Germany named it after him. (Can't speak for other european languages, but I THINK most of them actually call them X-rays?)

[@ElectariumTunic]

Sweden call it "röntgen". As in, "I had a röntgen of my hand yesterday." The rays themselves are called _röntgenstrålar_ ("röntgen-beams").

[@TheLowstef]

I got that one straight away... Then again, I am a physics teacher

[@SilverEye91]

Also got it straight away, not a physics teacher though, just very nerdy :P

[@Sam-lr9oi]

it was probably QI that did it for me

[@graflovespeep2487]

I also got it right away, but only because I just researched the history of the Nobel price, and he won the first one for Physics

[@ThePixel1983]

Took me far too long for someone working in Würzburg!

[@cheezfri]

I got it immediately but I'm dumb.

[@dylanrambow2704]

I just love the phrase "Strong Hapsburg Energy" 😂

[@RFC3514]

Maybe the "c" in E=mc² actually stands for "chin".

[@robertjarman3703]

Especially given that this has nothing to do with the Habsburgs, this is Prussia that the most famous Wilhelm was from.

[@cheezfri]

*Habsburg

[@arcanics1971]

I knew this immediately, so I must've been on the right wavelength.

[@patrickhanft]

This is kind of embarrassing. I grew up in the city, where "Wilhelm" discovered this and for years I used to go past this building, which on the outside has this writing in big letters (trying not to be too spoilery here): "In this house, W.C.R. discovered in 1895 the [discovery] named after him". And still I didn't get this until Melissa got it at 4:32. However, I really can recommend visiting his old lab there. (It was the only time I recognized a place at once when Geoguesser put me right there in this inside location in a rather strange round of playing it 😀).

[@brucegoatly]

The foot X-ray machines were called Pedoscopes and were definitely in use in shoe shops in the 1950s. I distinctly remember being able to see how my feet fitted (or didn't) in a pair of shoes. There were three viewing ports: one directly up for the victim, and one angled off on each side for parents or spectators.

[@bethhumphreys110]

The have one of these at the National Museum of Nuclear Science (a Smithsonian affiliate) in Albuquerque.

[@MartheenCahyaPaulo]

I like how you use "victim" instead of "customer".

[@Michael75579]

X-ray machines in shops were gone before I was born, but they did have a machine for measuring the size/width of your foot that seems to have disappeared as well. They consisted of a platform with a rectangular hole that you put your foot in after removing your shoe. Bars came in from all four sides until they were touching your foot and the positions of the bars was mapped to a shoe size and width.

[@WyvernYT]

@@Michael75579 I don't know how people are supposed to measure feet now, if the measuring plates are out of fashion.

[@vernontottle3659]

I remember regularly being examined with a pedoscope in the shoe shop. My feet didn’t get cancer and I’m still alive, seventy years later.

[@johnbennett1465]

Just a small nitpick. An X-ray "camera" consists of a frame to hold the film plate in place. There are no lenses or shutters. X-rays are useful exactly because it is hard to refract or block them.

[@timothymclean]

Well, the film plate is also an important part of the camera.

[@johnbennett1465]

@@timothymclean the film plate is what you put into a camera, not the camera itself.

[@timothymclean]

@@johnbennett1465 Saying that the film isn't part of the camera feels like saying the rope isn't part of the pulley. You could define your terms like that, but the thing you're excluding is a pretty essential part of the machine!

[@johnbennett1465]

@@timothymclean Wow, KZbin never notified me of your response. A car requires a person to drive it. By your logic that implies that a human is part of a car. Yes you need both for the system to work. But that doesn't mean that they are the same object.

[@timothymclean]

@@johnbennett1465 That's a pretty terrible response. First off, cars don't really require a human to operate these days. Self-driving cars aren't great, but they exist. Second, darn near _every_ machine humans invented requires a human operator of some kind. A camera needs a human to point it and press the shutter button, a hammer needs a human to swing it, an automatic dishwasher needs a human to press the "start" button. There's a pretty clear distinction between "operator" and "component," and...I have no idea what you think the film is if it's not a component of the camera.

[@vharmi.]

In many countries, X-rays are in fact called Röntgen rays after the inventor. Including mine, which led me to get this one pretty quickly :)

[@Centfla60]

This is the first time after watching at least 100 episodes of lateral that I knew the answer immediately after Tom said wedding ring🎉

[@SilverEye91]

She said of the experience: "I have seen my death".

[@timothymclean]

She later died of hand caner.

[@ikaro555]

They were so confused by the name Wilhelm alone 😂

[@eliavrad2845]

Its probably easier if you're near Europe, where they refer to high frequency to Wilhelm much more frequently

[@andrewhopkinson2503]

I spent most of this thinking it was the magnifying glass jewellers stick in their eye. I remember as a child having my foot x-rayed at the shop every time my parents bought me a pair of shoes.

[@strawberryutopia]

Sorry, but what shoe shop are you going to where they X-ray your feet?! (I don’t disbelieve you, I just think it’s cool!)

[@Keenath]

And the issue with fluoroscopes wasn't really the customer being in danger -- if you're getting x-rayed to see if your shoes fit right, that's gonna take a couple minutes at most, not a big deal. The problem is the salesman who's leaning down to look at the image of your feet in the fluoroscope screen, which means he's got his entire head in the beam, and he's doing this multiple times every day.

[@timothymclean]

Probably easier to get the public angry about their own feet than some minimum-wage worker's face.

[@jomuller6683]

the first question had me shouting "Röntgen! Röntgen!" out loud bc I was so excited to get it before everyone else xD

[@neon-kitty]

Fun fact: the German word for x-ray, to this day, is röntgen/Röntgenbild, after Wilhelm Röntgen.

[@nariu7times328]

I got this one right away, but wonderfully written - great job!

[@version365]

My favourite team on lateral. 🤩

[@DumpsterFireMusicOclock]

i love this, it feels like tom never left

[@mr88cet]

Yeehah, I guessed this one correctly immediately, for once! I remember that photo…

[@HaLo-t1c]

One of the very rare clips where i got the answer right away. 😅

[@somecunninglinguist]

Nice. First one I knew the answer to based on just the question.

[@arghya426]

i wish you posted the intro vod, it was hillarious

[@peter-d9f3l]

My first guess (after just hearing the question) was that it was something to do with painting restoration...

[@antispeedrun]

I like how pronouncing it Vil-helm just didn't tip them off to the geography at all.

[@panda4247]

Well, it's obviously a German / Austrian name , but what are you gonna do with that? My first though was Wilhelm Steinitz

[@smylesg]

3:49 I think Melissa is confusing engagement rings with wedding bands.

[@ThePixel1983]

I only got it at 2:30, and I work in Würzburg! 🙈

[@ecchikitty1395]

Figured it out fairly quickly, though figured was just the distinct shape of a ring laying on a wooden board or something.

[@anchiit]

Spoilers Shield 🛡

[@Kosmokraton]

Thank you!

[@blindleader42]

Tom's pronunciation of Röntgen...That soft 'g' in Röntgen might be present in some dialects of German, maybe Bavarian, but I don't think it's standard. And that ö is not the 'o' of "on". Try to say eee while making an 'oh' with your lips. In English rent-gən is pretty close the the German pronunciation

[@pvtbuddie]

Thanks!

[@abugidaiguess]

new favourite comment trend (for lack of a better word)

[@osmia]

+

[@Alsadius]

I was thinking it was TV, but this makes sense too.

[@ikaro555]

I remember seeing that image in my middle school Science book, so I got this one fairly soon

[@luketurner314]

There is now a unit of measure named after him, and it relates to exposure of X-rays

[@saoirsedeltufo7436]

An element too, atomic number 111

[@cybergeek11235]

ooh, i think i know this! . . . . this is the thing with x-rays, right? I don't remember the specifics but the fact that the ring showed up on the image was important? somehow? i think?

[@taniakrause9253]

You can still see that photo in the Röntgen Museum in Remscheid ( Germany)

[@57thorns]

An not everyone going Wilhelm Röntgen makes me realize, that is much easier in countries where X-rays are named after him. 🙂

[@luxgracetail4599]

Got it at 3:06

[@luxgracetail4599]

(replying as a spoiler-bar-ish measure) Since that picture is iconic and seared somewhere in my mind

[@kilgirlietrout]

I have so many questions about the blue streak on Taha's wall.

[@jamesaditya5254]

I somehow managed to guess this one from the get-go out of sheer luck, never been so proud of myself for something I didn't work for

[@theglimpse3785]

I guessed Wilhelm Scream as well, until we got further into the guessing.

[@ToppyTree]

sabrina gave you a green screen and you didn't use it? I'm disappointed

[@PianoKwanMan]

Sabrina is kind of right. The diamond didn't become valuable until the 1800s. Modern day usage is long wave UV and short Visible light, as opposed to x-rays, for fluorescence, which is cool

[@olivier2553]

Funny how the x-ray films have completely been obliterated, when it is the technology that has been used the most so far.

[@stephaniewachter1048]

Although it was already known that X-rays were dangerous, this technique was also very popular outside medicine until the First World War. People simply rented an X-ray machine and invited people to an X-ray party in their salon. Just taking normal photographs was simply boring. So let's try out this new stuff.

[@johnnysun6495]

Please include the episode number/title on these videos. It's hard to find which episode these clips are from, especially the older clips.

[@lateralcast]

There's a link to the correct episode in the end cards that pop up at the end of the video.

[@johnnysun6495]

@@lateralcast Thanks! I didn't realize that. Also the one for this video is wrong.

[@lateralcast]

Ok, will fix, thanks.

[@DrRChandra]

If I understand correctly, they used to just put a sheet of photographic film under what they were trying to image, and the shadow of the bones and whatnot would show up on the film. I didn't think there was a camera per se involved. Or I could be totally out in left field.

the Habsburg boys only ever had one out of four names: Wilhelm, Friedrich, Wilhelm-Friedrich and Friedrich-Wilhelm... easy to remember

[@varana]

That were the Hohenzollern, i.e. Prussia/German empire. The Habsburgs in Austria never had any important Wilhelm and only very few Friedrichs.

@@varana that's true... always get my former royalty mixed up

[@kotqrka]

In some places these rays are called by Röntgen name: not x-rays, but röntgen rays.

[@LukeIdontKnow]

Incredible

[@Atlessa]

The only reason I didn't get this instantly is because I thought the guy's name was Konrad...

[@CineSoar]

3.6 Roentgen, not great, not terrible.

[@tomtrevatt3286]

Why does Taha always have a swatch of blue paint on his wall?

[@wow.m]

Initial guess: the ring was made out of some radioactive metal, and the discovery was radioactive decay.

[@RFC3514]

The "g" in Röntgen is hard (i.e., closer to "ront-gun", not "runtjun").

[@MikeBurke888]

"I have seen my death"

[@1TakoyakiStore]

Where there's a Wilhelm there's a way.

[@der.Schtefan]

This is a trivial question for all Germans :) I immediately knew this and shouted out his full name in the middle of a supermarket 😂😂😂😂

[@inwalters]

Even though I got this before them, embarrassed that it took me so long to get it. (2 minutes)

[@PlaAwa]

danger was discovered later... nice

[@fsodn]

Yeah. That image is the beginning of that chapter in many physics textbooks.

[@brendancuffe4671]

I was sure it was gonna be that he invented the metal detector and found his wife's ring

[@JoFreddieRevDr]

As a child I rember seeing a X-ray Shoe Pedoscope in my local Clarks store in the 60s

[@timothymclean]

Sabrina clarifying that she wasn't alive in 1895, as though one of the people in the call* might have been, cracked me up a bit. *Presumably Tom?

[@random832]

wait i knew x-rays for shoe fittings were real but i assumed there was some kind of snapshot exposure mechanism with a screen that fades slowly you're telling me the cartoon trope where someone puts a body part behind an x-ray display and their bones move in real time on the screen was a real thing?

[@TallinuTV]

I don’t think you call the receiver a “camera” in this case. (Spoilers:) . . . . Before hospitals had newer digital X-ray machines that generated an image file immediately with fancy electronic detector plates, they all would use film, which is put behind the target and gets exposed where the X-rays penetrate in proportion to how many photons make it to the film. The white areas where the bones are located block much of the X-rays and therefore are low exposure areas, while the totally black areas outside the body are fully exposed, and the shades of gray in between are different levels of partial exposure due to soft tissues, etc. Hospitals without those newer machines still use X-ray film like this, and dentists will put tiny pieces of X-ray film in your mouth to get pictures of the roots of your teeth and your jawbone and detect cavities.

[@docrefa]

Was looking for this comment. X-rays are just like photography, except instead of "light > lens (camera) > film" , it's "x-ray projector > body > film".

[@mattkuhn6634]

I would have had to tap out on this one as I knew what it was as soon as I heard 1895 and wedding ring.

[@SylviaRustyFae]

1:06 Every CN fan: That's where we do our best!

[@TheAwesomeRohin85]

Ah dang, my first guess was something to do with the rings of Saturn and telescopes

[@gljames24]

Moissanite isn't fake diamond. It's a much higher brilliant gemstone, is also used as a high voltage semiconductor, and is a 9.5moh cutting material.

[@doctorstrangepants6706]

I love the mad libs bit

[@robertwilloughby8050]

New question, how did sausage skins make the Netherlands (and later the rest of world) healthier? Edit:- Guys, if you know the answer, please don't spoil, just put "Pim" or "Bill" in the comments, and I'll know you know. This is on the honours system, so if you want to cheat, I can't stop you, but you'll know what you've done, so try not to cheat.

[@lastnamefirstname8655]

interesting wedding ring.

[@IsYitzach]

Given the way that the question was asked, I thought this Wilhelm was one of the Hapsburgs and he discovered some infidelity upon closer examination of a wedding ring which could have lead in part to some kind of turmoil that eventually lead to WWI and who was on which side.

[@alexj9603]

I am not aware of any Habsburg named Wilhelm. But my first thoughts went towards Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany who ruled in 1895. But the question was about another Wilhelm.

[@IsYitzach]

@@alexj9603 Wouldn't have been impossible with the Holy Roman Empire (Germany) being part of the Junior branch of the Hapsburg's holdings. But sure enough, Wilhelm II was House Hohenzollern.

[@alexj9603]

@@IsYitzach The HRE ceased to exist in 1803, so by 1895, no Habsburg had power over anything but Austria-Hungary. But most importantly, Wilhelm was not a common name in the Habsburg dynasty.

[@IsYitzach]

@@alexj9603 you didn't have to say anything else. I already confirmed my error. You could have stayed silent. How would I know that Wilhelm isn't a common name in the Hapsburgs? Why not have German houses that are still Hapsburg as they had the preceding state? It doesn't matter. I found Wilhelm II was house Hohenzollern, which is not Hapsburg.

[@alloallie]

For some reason, it was my first guess. Wasn't quite sure it was actually right, but I just noted "Oh, Wilhelm. German name. Could it be...that guy?"

[@route2070]

Wait a second, X Ray source and a camera on opposite ends? What was where in my ER room where they took a chest X Ray while i was sitting up in bed before being moved to my room upstairs? I assume this swinging thing , that had an arm in front of me was the camera?

[@Ludvigvanamadeus]

That was probably the source, the "camera" isn't really a camera, just a piece of film or a digital detector

[@EinDose]

My favorite part of Answer in Progress episodes of Lateral are when Sabrina confidently starts listing barely-related answers like she might just stumble into it.

[@JohnADoe-pg1qk]

X-rays, formerly known as Twitter-rays. 😁

[@cstiger4]

H called them "X-rays" because he did not know what kind of rays it was. Later in Germany it's actually called "Röntgen-Strahlung" (Röntgen rays)

[@ericvaninwegen6384]

I was way off on this one. My first thought of Wilhelm and very late 1800's was the year of three kings of Prussia! (I was off by 7 years.)

[@YieldOnly]

The moment Tom talked about Wilhelms wife volunteering I just went "Wilhelm " out loud xD

[@ckdo1974]

That would be "Wilhelm " for me. This entire episode feels rather weird, particularly because I have never heard Wilhelm being referenced without his middle name...

[@Sam-lr9oi]

I broke my wrist recently and thought that the wifi connected backboard-thing that they're using now was really neat when I went for an xray. And I got a chest xray in the hospital a few years back as a TB screening since I was going into a state criminal psychiatric hospital, and the honkin' big machine they carted in to do that was really cool too. I'm from the US, but my most British feature is definitely a strong urge to go, "oo that's a nice bit of kit"

[@Sam-lr9oi]

if anyone in radiology wants to translate my dumb words into smart words, that'd be cool

[@robertwilloughby8050]

@@Sam-lr9oi I don't want to be nasty, but I hope you were either a guard or it was for criminally insane.... littering!

[@Judymontel]

I think his name is pronounced with a hard "g" and the first syllable rhymes with "tent"

[@varana]

In fast casual speech, at least German usually simplifies it to a soft g.

[@Judymontel]

@@Drabkikker Thank you! That'll teach me to assume German pronunciation from a totally different language.😐..

[@Judymontel]

@@varana Thank you - I was actually jumping to conclusions (I now realize) from the way it's pronounced in another language... oops!

[@nikkiofthevalley]

I guessed X-ray crystallography a few seconds before someone said X-rays

[@munjee2]

I feel like they could show the lboto this once, its not copyrighted

[@isaacbobjork7053]

Wilhelm is in fact the German version of William

[@loddude5706]

. . . & to celebrate, he got completely & utterly ring-pieced . . . . . . who hasn't?! : )

[@SJursa-ey4tt]

"your woman", white town album coverart

[@amplsi]

"small hands, small bands, gold, diamonds" sabrina dropping bars

[@ThursdayNext67]

I was guessing a jeweller's loupe

[@smylesg]

That's what I was thinking.

[@phineas81707]

Sabrina going "I don't know how X-Rays work" felt peak Answer In Progress.

[@IceMetalPunk]

If it was peak AiP, it'd be followed by an entire video of her researching how X-Rays work, then concluding some life advice based on all that research.

[@epiendless1128]

I thought "camera". Wrong sort of camera.

[@loudwhitenoise_]

my initial guess was cataract surgery on a rich person that saw the ring was fake

[@Kumimono]

Wilhelm... Röntgen?

[@winkletter]

I knew this from QI!

[@W1ngSMC]

Tom's pronounciation of Röntgen ☠

[@sophiamarchildon3998]

Initial thoughts: because a photographic evidence was admitted to court (for the first time). So a photo of her with another man while wearing the ring was sufficient for convicting her of adultery?

[@sophiamarchildon3998]

3:48 onward: "Jesus Christ, Marie! They're minerals!"