Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen

Born: 1845 | Died: 1923

Inventor of the X-Ray

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was born in Lennep, Germany which is now part of the city of Remscheid in western Germany but still belonged to Prussia at that time. Röntgen studied at the Polytechnic University in Zurich, Switzerland, and in 1888, he started working as a physicist at the University of Würzburg.

In November 1895, he discovered and produced those electromagnetic radiation and waves today known as x-rays, or Röntgen-rays. His discovery was accidental as he was not looking specifically for rays like this but was experimenting with electric current flow in a partially evacuated glass tube. However, the newly discovered x-rays reformed the medical field, because they allowed doctors to see inside the human body for the first time.

Röntgen was honored for his discovery with the Nobel Prize in 1901. Röntgen's name is usually given as "Roentgen" in English. And, even today, people in Germany refer to an X-ray as a Röntgen.

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