About wilhelm c roentgen biography

He spent the last few years of his life at his country home at Weilheim, near Munich. He died there on February 10, , after a short illness resulting from intestinal cancer. Daintith, John, et al. Gillispie, C. Glasser, Otto, W. Thomas, Magill, Frank N. Nitske, Robert W. Weber, Robert L. But he won the first Nobel Prize for Physics in and had a very distinguished career in German universities.

Later, he went to a polytechnical school in Zurich, Switzerland, where he got a diploma in mechanical engineering. Sir William Crookes had developed the Crookes tube in in which the pressure in a vacuum was reduced to the point that cathode rays shot straight across the tube and hit the wall opposite, causing it to glow with a greenish fluorescence.

He noticed that wrapped and unexposed photographic plates left near his tubes became fogged, but he didn't understand why this happened. Putting things like books and cards between the tube and the wall seemed not to vary the effect. The speed of the cathode particles also affects the penetrating effect of the x rays. X rays are a form of invisible, highly penetrating electromagnetic radiation with much shorter wavelengths or higher frequency than visible light.

Their wavelength range is from less than a billionth of an inch to less than a trillionth of an inch. Scientists eventually realized that x rays are produced when high-energy electrons from a heated filament cathode strike the surface of a target. Louis Daguerre and his colleagues had "fixed" an image from a camera obscura by adding mercury to the silver compounds being used, and the English inventor Fox Talbot had also fixed his images on sensitized paper.

These developments led to the production of "dry plates" in the s and the emergence of the Kodak Company, which made cameras affordable to the general population. So he used photography to capture pictures of the effects of different experiments he undertook with the cathode rays of the Crooke's tube on different substances. This photograph started the era of radioactivity.

German physicist who discovered x rays in He discovered the penetrating properties of x rays and took a number of photographs, including one of his wife's hand, showing for the first time the living skeleton. News of his discovery spread rapidly, and x rays were soon put to use in medicine, metallurgy, and physics. See long biography on p.

Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Learn more about citation styles Citation styles Encyclopedia. Further Reading Daintith, John, et al. Esterer, Arnulf K. More From encyclopedia. Updated Aug 18 About encyclopedia. Wilhelm Friedrich Philipp Pfeffer. Wilgis, St. Wilgefortis, St. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. Wilfrid of York, St. Wilfrid Laurier University: Tabular Data.

Wilfrid Laurier University: Narrative Description. Wilfrid Laurier University. Columbia Daily Spectator. XLIII, no. New York City. Retrieved 22 March Retrieved 22 February Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 20 July National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 16 August The Canadian Philatelist. Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Curie Rayleigh Lenard J. Bohr Millikan M. Wilson O. Siegbahn K. Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff Netherlands. Sully Prudhomme France. Emil Adolf von Behring Germany. The grief of losing his parents gave birth to a need within Roentgen to have a child. Roentgen produced eighteen papers when he was in Giessen, due to which he was recognized as an extraordinary scientist and was offered the position of professor of Physics and director of the new Physical Institute at the University of Wurzburg.

Eventually, Wilhelm along with his family returned to Wurzburg on October 1, The new institute was located on the tree-lined Pliecher Ring which was later renamed Roentgen Ring in his honour. It was a two storey building with ample room for laboratory and lecture rooms which was just the way Wilhelm desired. During his Wurzburg experience he produced seventeen important papers- the most important of his life.

This led to the appreciation for his academic excellence and he was elected as Rector President of the Julius Maximilians University of Wurzburg for the biennium of and Did his electors already have a premonition of what was to come? This brings us to the significant period at the end of when many eminent scientists experimented with the properties of cathode rays and acquired conflicting results.

It was supposedly the month of October when Wilhelm completely got engrossed in the investigations of these strange rays , which prior to him were carried on by Hittorf, Crookes Hertz and Lenard. The intensity of his absorption in his experiments amplified as he progressed with the work and got so sincerely immersed in it that he toiled days and nights for it.

His preliminary efforts began with accumulating the best conceivable apparatus for the cathode ray experiments. The apparatus consisted of a large Ruhmkorff induction coil for current production. The coil was attached to a Deprez interrupter that resulted in a high energy discharge. He also acquired several Hittorf-Crookes tubes and some Lenard tubes of different strengths.

The Lenard type was a round glass cathode ray tube that had a small window covered by a thin aluminium foil, through which the cathode rays could penetrate. The oval Hittorf-Crookes tube had no such window but only a glass target area. Wilhelm also had a raps vacuum pump, which was essential to evacuate these tubes prior to use for more efficiency.

When he assembled all his equipments in proper working order, he began his observations in solemn. This brings us to the momentous day of Friday, November 8, Wilhelm was performing experiments confirming the earlier works of Lenard. He was using a low output Lenard tube wrapped in cardboards and tinfoil so that no visible light emanated, and showing the fluorescence of a small cardboard screen coated with barium platinocyanide when it was placed close to the tube and bombarded by cathode rays.

His analytical mind led him to perform the experiment again with another approach, and he wondered if he could observe similar effects from all glass Hittorf-Crookes tubes of higher strength. He selected this larger tube, encased it in cardboard, connected it to his Ruhmkorff coil , darkened the room and activated the coil so as to pass current through the tube.

He first confirmed that there was no visible light leakage. He observed the projected fluorescence of the screen near the tube. He was prepared to turn off the current to the tube to prepare for the next phase of his experiment, when suddenly, his eye caught the shadowy beam of a weak light from a workbench about a meter away from the tube.

This light immediately attracted his attention and he continued to energize the tube. He was rewarded by a continued fluorescence of a faint green cloud of flickering light waves moving in unison with the fluctuating discharges of the coil. Highly thrilled, he ignited a match and discovered that the source of this dim light was a small barium platinocyanide screen lying on the bench.

He continued to apply current to the tube, moving the fluorescent light. He was very well aware that cathode rays never travelled these distances, and he became entirely indulged in explaining these observations. He began to interrogate his findings as they did not follow the known properties of cathode rays. To find out his answer, he held different papers and books in the beam with very little dimming effect on the fluorescence.

Metallic objects were seen to be outlined on the screen and while holding one object he noticed the shadow of the bones of his fingers. He cried in amazement. He could scarcely believe his eyes. It was perhaps this moment when he concluded his astonishing discovery; these effects were not due to cathode rays but probably from a new type of unknown highly penetrating rays, which he named X-rays.

Over the weekend, he devoted all his time in investigating the properties of these newly discovered rays. He examined all kinds of new stuff; a set of weights, a barrel of his shotgun, a compass, a coil of wire, different types of wood and paper, glass, a door jamb and many other objects. His observations and investigations continued over next several weeks.

He found out that these rays could penetrate cardboard, wood, cloth and even a thick book, but they could not go through copper, iron and other metals so well. He also found that they could penetrate flesh but not bones.

About wilhelm c roentgen biography

The discovery of these strange rays excited Wilhelm to such an extent that he almost forgot the essence of sleep, and even if he slept, it was on the couch of his lab. Arthur Korn correspondence, Oral history interview with Heinz Pick, October 5. Oral History interview with Paul S. Epstein, Oral history interview with Peter J.