November 8, 1895: Wilhelm Röntgen discovers the radiation he named X-rays, leading him to create the 1st X-ray projector, revolutinizing science, especially medicine. It won him the 1st Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901.
He was born in 1845 in Lennep, Prussia, now Remschied, North Rhine-Westphalia; and grew up in Utrecht, the Netherlands. He graduated from the University of Zurich in Switzerland, and taught at universities in France and Germany, and at Columbia University in New York.
During 1895, at his laboratory at the University of Würzburg in Bavaria, Germany, Röntgen was investigating the external effects from the various types of vacuum tube equipment when an electrical discharge is passed through them.
In early November, he was repeating an experiment with one of Lenard's tubes, in which a thin aluminium window had been added to permit the cathode rays to exit the tube but a cardboard covering was added to protect the aluminium from damage by the strong electrostatic field that produces the cathode rays.
Röntgen knew that the cardboard covering prevented light from escaping, yet he observed that the invisible cathode rays caused a fluorescent effect on a small cardboard screen painted with barium platinocyanide when it was placed close to the aluminum window. It occurred to Röntgen that the Crookes-Hittorf tube, which had a much thicker glass wall than the Lenard tube, might also cause this fluorescent effect.
In the late afternoon of November 8, 1895, Röntgen was determined to test his idea. He carefully constructed a black cardboard covering similar to the one he had used on the Lenard tube. He covered the Crookes–Hittorf tube with the cardboard and attached electrodes to a Ruhmkoff coil to generate an electrostatic charge.
Before setting up the barium platinocyanide screen to test his idea, Röntgen darkened the room to test the opacity of his cardboard cover. As he passed the Ruhmkorff coil charge through the tube, he determined that the cover was light-tight, and turned to prepare for the next step of the experiment.
It was at this point that Röntgen noticed a faint shimmering from a bench a few feet away from the tube. To be sure, he tried several more discharges and saw the same shimmering each time. Striking a match, he discovered the shimmering had come from the location of the barium platinocyanide screen he had been intending to use next.
Röntgen speculated that a new kind of ray might be responsible. November 8 was a Friday, so he took advantage of the weekend to repeat his experiments and made his first notes. In the following weeks, he ate and slept in his laboratory as he investigated many properties of the new rays he temporarily termed "X-rays," using the mathematical designation ("X") for something unknown. The new rays came to bear his name in many languages as "Röntgen rays," and the associated X-ray radiograms as "Röntgenograms."
Anna Bertha Röntgen
About 6 weeks after his discovery, he took a picture, a radiograph, using X-rays, of his wife Anna Bertha's hand. When she saw her skeleton, she exclaimed "I have seen my death!" He later took a better picture of his friend Albert von Kölliker's hand at a public lecture, which raised the profile of his discovery. Eventually, a "radiograph" became known as an "X-ray photograph," and finally just an "X-ray."
complete with wedding ring
Röntgen saw his own death in 1923. Today, he is considered the father of diagnostic radiology, the medical speciality which uses imaging to diagnose disease. In honour of his accomplishments, in 2004, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) named Element 111, a radioactive element with multiple unstable isotopes, after him: Roentgenium. The unit of measurement, roentgen, was also named after him.
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November 8, 1895, as said, was a Friday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. Basketball barely existed. And hockey was all-amateur. So there were no scores on this historic day.
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