The world first discovered the sensational news that Wilhelm Röntgen’s mysterious X-rays could penetrate clothing and human skin, not through scientists but through the press.
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was a physicist who had little time for publicity. Like all other scientists the professor from Würzburg University in Franconia always sought recognition from his peers, but Röntgen rarely appeared at scientific conferences or wrote papers, let alone promoted his research findings outside of his field. All this changed after Röntgen’s accidental discovery of X-rays sparked a media storm that meant his findings would have an impact like no other before it.
On the evening of 8 November 1895, Röntgen was in his laboratory studying how cathode-ray tubes emit light. His attention was distracted by a glowing fluorescent screen that was too far from the tube to be affected by the cathode rays. Röntgen didn’t leave his lab for weeks as he tried to investigate the source of the glow. He discovered that the impact of cathode rays on the glass vacuum tube was generating a new kind of invisible ray. The rays had extraordinary penetrative power – they could travel long distances and make the screen glow, even when cardboard, wood, copper and aluminium were placed in the way – and could be recorded on photographic plates.
Röntgen knew immediately that he had to forego his natural reticence and disseminate this important discovery to the scientific community as soon as possible. Over Christmas, he wrote a 10-page article entitled “On a new kind of rays”, which was accepted by the Proceedings of the Würzburg Physical-Medical Society on 28 December. Röntgen named the discovery X-radiation, or X-rays, after the mathematical term ‘X’ that denotes something unknown. (He always preferred this term, even though other researchers insisted on calling it Röntgen rays.)
The article was precise and reserved in tone, with no accompanying images, and so the chances are that most scientists would have ignored the findings. A trip to the post office in Würzburg on New Years’ Day in 1896 changed all that. In Röntgen’s hands were 90 envelopes, each containing a reprint of the article, which were addressed to physicists all over Europe. Twelve of the envelopes, addressed to friends or to distinguished scientists like Lord Kelvin, also contained nine photographs. Röntgen made several photos mainly of the interiors of metal objects, but it was another photo that led to a situation in which “all hell broke loose,” as Röntgen would later complain.
Since X-rays could penetrate materials like metals and wood, it seemed natural to find out if they could penetrate flesh. What Röntgen discovered was a remarkable ability to see through flesh and make bones visible. As he described in his paper: “If the hand be held before the fluorescent screen, the shadow shows the bones darkly with only faint outlines of the surrounding tissues.” To illustrate this effect, Röntgen took an X-ray photograph of his wife’s hand, which produced an almost ghoulish image that clearly showed her bones and wedding ring.
One of the recipients of these letters was Franz Exner, a former fellow student of Röntgen and at the time professor of experimental physics in Vienna. Exner was a convivial man, regularly inviting members of the faculty to informal dinners at his home. Röntgen’s letter containing the photos arrived just in time for Exner to show his guests at one such gathering that upcoming Saturday, 4 January. One guest, Ernst Lecher, professor of physics in Prague, was so interested in the photos he asked Exner if he could borrow them for one day. Lecher was staying with his father in Vienna over the Christmas holidays, and knew he would be very interested in the images.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1901/perspectives/
Away from such concerns, scientists rushed to replicate and refine Röntgen’s X-ray images. Scientists were free to create X-rays using cathode-ray tubes because Röntgen had deliberately not patented his discovery, convinced that his inventions and discoveries belonged to the world at large.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1901/perspectives/
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