X-rays work by shooting a tiny bit of ionising radiation through your body. Radiation acts both as a wave and particles, so we can call this radiation a ray. On the other side of your body, an image is captured by absorbing these rays. The more radiation is captured, the whiter the image, so thicker stuff in your body is white and the rest is black. Very cool quantum physics stuff, but we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about x-ray specs.

X-ray specs (claim to) give you the ability to see under a woman’s clothes. A totally different process. It doesn’t actually work though things. What you see is polarizing effect that creates two overlapping images that makes it seem like objects have a transparent outline and a solid center. It look a bit like you’re seeing through things.

This process is achieved by looking through a feather inside a small hole. Newer glasses use a diffraction lenses instead of the feather, but it’s the same effect. The glasses are make out of cardboard and have a small hole cut in the center. You can also get ones made out of plastic. The process was invented in 1909, but the were more famously improved and brought to us by Harold von Braunhut.

This guy was strange. He invented Sea Monkeys, sold Invisible Goldfish that were guaranteed never to appear, and raced motorcycles under the name The Green Hornet. Also, despite being a jew, he was a white supremacist who bought guns for the Klu Klux Klan and regularly attending the Aryan Nations annual conference.