GREAT SCIENTISTS OF WORLD - WILHELM RONTGEN

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Röntgen also spelled Roentgen, (born March 27, 1845, Lennep, Prussia —died February 10, 1923, Munich, Germany), physicist who was a recipient of the first Nobel Prize for Physics, in 1901, for his discovery of X-rays, which heralded the age of modern physics .

 

 Roentgen, , discovered X-rays in 1895—accidentally—while testing whether cathode rays could pass through glass. ... Because he did not know what the rays were, he called them 'X,' meaning 'unknown,' rays.

 When Röntgen held a piece of lead in front of the electron-discharge tube, it blocked the rays, but he was shocked to see his own flesh glowing around his bones on the fluorescent screen behind his hand. He then placed photographic film between his hand and the screen and captured the world's first X-ray image.

Röntgen , on 8 November 1895, produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a

  wavelength range known as X-rays or Röntgen rays, an achievement that earned him the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. He  invented   X-ray  tube.

 An X-ray tube is a vacuum tube that converts electrical input power into X-rays. The availability of this controllable source of X-rays created the field of radiography, the imaging of partly opaque objects with penetrating radiation.An x-ray tube functions as a specific energy converter, receiving the electrical energy and converting it into two other forms of energy: x-radiation and heat.

 

 In June 1896, only 6 months after Roentgen announced his discovery, X-rays were being used by battlefield physicians to locate bullets in wounded soldiers. Prior to 1912, X-rays were used little outside the realms of medicine and dentistry, though some X-ray pictures of metals were produced.

 

 The most familiar use of x-rays is checking for fractures (broken bones), but x-rays are also used in other ways. For example, chest x-rays can spot pneumonia. Mammograms use x-rays to look for breast cancer. When you have an x-ray, you may wear a lead apron to protect certain parts of your body.

 His discovery of x-rays was a great revolution in the fields of physics and medicine and electrified the general public.

Roentgen discovered x-rays could pass through materials such as cardboard and human tissue, but not through denser substances such as metal and bone, which absorb the rays. In 1901, Roentgen became the first recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics for his discovery.

Tragically, Roentgen's own wife, whose hand is pictured in the first x-ray photograph, died a gruesome radiation sarcoma death.Seeking to find practical use for the x-ray phenomenon, he utilized what has been dubbed his greatest invention – the industrial laboratory.

 

 Four years after his wife, Röntgen died at Munich on February 10, 1923, from carcinoma of the intestine.

WILHELM   RONTGEN