In order to demonstrate that a Kerr cell responds to an applied electric field in a few tens of microseconds, Blondlot, in collaboration with Ernest-Adolphe Bichat, adapted the rotating-mirror method that Léon Foucault had applied to measure the speed of light.

The French Academy of Sciences awarded the Prix Leconte (₣50,000) for 1904 to Blondlot, citing the totality of his work rather than the discovery of N-rays.

[4] American physicist Robert W. Wood, who had a reputation as a popular "debunker" of nonsense during the period, showed that the phenomena were purely subjective with no physical origin and by 1905, no one outside of Nancy believed in N rays; but Blondlot himself is reported to have still been convinced of their existence in 1926.

William Seabrook stated in his Wood biography Doctor Wood,[6] that Blondlot went insane and died, supposedly as a result of the exposure of the N ray debacle: "This tragic exposure eventually led to Blondlot's madness and death."

Using an almost identical wording, this statement was repeated later by Martin Gardner: "Wood's exposure led to Blondlot's madness and death.