Why does radiation of small wavelength interact with small objects?

Question

I was reading chapter 2 from the book 'Diagnostic Radiology Physics : A handbook for Students and Teachers', and came across the following quote

"X rays of energy of a few tens of kiloelectronvolts or so have a wavelength of a few nanometres. Since this is also in the general range of atomic dimensions, one would expect interactions to take place between electromagnetic radiation and atoms."

Its not far fetched. My analogy is that a bullet shot towards glass can break up the 'larger' structures - bulk crystal lattices or whatever - but certainly wont ionize the material i.e remove electrons from the atomic structures. On the otherhand, an electron beam incident on the glass can ionize the material, but wont have any impact on the larger structures. This is an awkward way to think about these things. For one thing, a bullet is not really comparable with a wave.

Is it possible to justify that quote using physics?

Answer 1

Your bullet analogy applies in the sense that the bullet is analogous to the macroscopic thermal "damage" caused by lower frequency, longer wavelength microwave radiation, while the higher frequency, shorter wavelength electron beam is analogous to the microscopic ionization "damage" caused by x-rays at the atomic level.

For an extensive discussion of the interaction of radiation with matter, I recommend the following site:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/mod3.html

Hope this helps.