Wilhelm+Roentgen

Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen was a German scientist who accidentally discovered the x-ray in the year of 1895. There are many steps to how the x-ray works. Rontgen had many job opportunities and accepted many, but also declined many.

Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen was born on March 27, 1845 in the lower Rhine province of Germany. He first went to school 1848, at a boarding school called the institute of Martinus Herman van dorm in 1848. In 1862 Rontgen was expelled because another child pranked a student and Wilhelm was held responsible for it. Even though was expelled in 1865 he entered the university of Utrecht, and studied physics. Wilhelm went to the University of Zurich and graduated in 1869 with his PH.D.in 1872 he got married to Anna Bertha Ludwig. They never had children but they adopted Josephine Bertha Ludwig in 1872. They also adopted Mrs. Rontgen’s only brother’s daughter. After his years in college he declined and accepted a lot of different jobs. Wilhelm was qualified to be a lecturer at Strasbourg University in 1874. In 1875 he was given a position as a professor in the Academy of Agriculture at Hohenhiem in Württemberg. After that, in 1876 he went back to Strasbourg to be a professor of physics. Then in 1886 he declined the university of Jena and two years later the University of Utrecht. In 1888 he accepted from Wurzburg University, where he succeeded Kohlrausch and found among his colleagues Lorenz and Helmholtz. He was offered a position as the presidency of the Physikalisch-Technische, but kept on turning them down. Wilhelm Rontgen died February 10, 1923 in Munich, Germany.

In 1895 Wilhelm discovered the x-ray. The experiment he meant to do was with the involvement of a tube that emitted light. The letter x in x-ray was to indicate the unknown, for when they were an unknown for of x-rays, and x-ray is just a shorter way to say x-radiation. The x-ray is like the light rays that our eye can perceive, but the x-ray has much higher energy. That higher energy that x-rays have and our eye does not have creates a shorter wavelength. A cathode is used to generate an x-ray. It generates an x-ray by heating up to a high temperature, and then the heat causes electrons at a velocity. The anode across the tube has a high potential difference. It attracts electrons at greater velocity. When the electrons join together with the anode, which is usually made of tungsten, causes an x-ray photon to be released and visible. The tube acts like a shield, but has a small opening and that’s what makes the beam so concentrated. The beam travels through everything until it contacts tissue. Since the tissue in our bodies is so soft the beam just passes right through it and doesn’t absorb the beam. Strong and made of calcium the bone in our bodies however do absorb the beam, which creates the x-ray and can be digitally projected on a screen. Rontgen found on the 8th of November in 1895 that if the tube was concealed in a thick black carton and worked in a dark room, the x-ray would be florescent, even if the tube was as far as two meters. He was very well known for his discovery of x-rays, and got many awards for it. Streets were named after him, he received many medals, prizes, and honorary doctorates. He also won honorary memberships of learned societies in Germany.

Wilhelm’s discovery of the x-ray in 1895 was a very helpful thing to have in case of broken or scared bones. It is a very complicated and long process the x-ray takes to work in such a short amount of time.