Wilhelm+Rontgen-1895

Wilhelm Rontgen was born on March 27, 1845 in Lennep, Rhenish Prussia. He lived to be 78 and died on February 10, 1923. He is known for having the first x-ray, which was of his wife's hand. Rontgen tried to attend the University of Utrecht, but was turned away from the school. He joined the Federal Polytechnic Institute instead and went into a field of mechanical engineering. Rontgen became a professor at Strasbour University and the Academy of Agriculture at Hohenheim. He was meant to teach at Columbia University in New York City but turned away this offer after the outbreak of World War I.

During 1895 Rontgen was investigating the external effects from the various types of vacuum tube equiptment when an electrical charge was passed through them. While experimenting, he noticed that a thin aluminium window caused a flourescent effect on a small cardboard screen painted with barium platinocyanide. He tested the flourescent light by putting an electrical charge through the barium platinocyanide and discovered that a shimmering light came from the barium platinocyanide screen. This sparked Rontgen to speculate that a new kind of ray might be possible for this effect. He called this ray the "x-ray" because the rays were still unknown. These rays were able to pass through the human body, except bones. This produced an image of a person's skeleton. Rontgen's wife was the first person to have an x-ray taken. It was of her hand and her ring could be seen on her finger. The x-ray has helped the medical sciences by allowing doctor's to take images of the body that are not able to be seen to the naked eye.

The x-ray of Rongten's wife's hand