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Roentgen,
Wilhelm Konrad German physicist Born: Lennep, Prussia, March 27, 1845 Died: Munich, Bavaria, February 10, 1923 | |||||||||
Avogadro Becquerel Bohr Doppler Einstein Geiger Heisenberg Hertz Kirchhoff Planck Roentgen Rutherford Schrodinger |
Roentgen obtained a degree in physics in Zurich, Switzerland. While experimenting with cathode-ray tubes at the University of Wurzburg, Bavaria, Roentgen noticed a sheet of paper glowing. The cathode-ray tube had been blocked off, but still the paper, coated with a substance called barium platinocyanide, continued to glow. Roentgen deduced that an invisible radiation was emerging from the cathode-ray tube that was highly penetrating. He called the radiation X-rays, X being an unknown factor. For seven weeks, Roentgen experimented furiously and in December 1895, he published his first paper describing the properties of X-rays. In his first public lecture on X-rays, Roentgen called for a volunteer and an eighty year old man stepped up to have his hand x-rayed. The photograph taken showed all the bones inside the hand and the audience was amazed. Interest in X-rays swept over Europe and America very quickly and within four days of the news reaching America, X-rays were used to locate a bullet within a patients leg. X-rays are also used in dentistry to highlight tooth decay. Aside from offering medical diagnosis benefits, the discovery of X-rays was to have a major impact on physics. Within a matter of months, investigations of X-rays led to the discovery of radioactivity by Becquerel. Roentgen earned the very first Nobel prize in physics in 1901. Although he was offered a title by the King of Bavaria, he declined this honour. He also made no attempt to patent or otherwise gain financially from his discovery, even though he became impoverished under the hyperinflation existing in Germany at the end of World War I. | |||||||||
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