Who is conrad roentgen

In he returned to Strasbourg as Professor of Physics, but three years later he accepted the invitation to the Chair of Physics in the University of Giessen. In he declined an offer to the Chair of Physics in the University of Leipzig, but in he accepted it in the University of Munich, by special request of the Bavarian government, as successor of E.

Here he remained for the rest of his life, although he was offered, but declined, the Presidency of the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt at Berlin and the Chair of Physics of the Berlin Academy. Among other problems he studied were the electrical and other characteristics of quartz; the influence of pressure on the refractive indices of various fluids; the modification of the planes of polarised light by electromagnetic influences; the variations in the functions of the temperature and the compressibility of water and other fluids; the phenomena accompanying the spreading of oil drops on water.

In he was studying the phenomena accompanying the passage of an electric current through a gas of extremely low pressure. Previous work in this field had already been carried out by J.

Plucker , J. Hittorf , C. Varley , E. Goldstein , Sir William Crookes , H. Hertz and Ph. On the evening of November 8, , he found that, if the discharge tube is enclosed in a sealed, thick black carton to exclude all light, and if he worked in a dark room, a paper plate covered on one side with barium platinocyanide placed in the path of the rays became fluorescent even when it was as far as two metres from the discharge tube.

During subsequent experiments he found that objects of different thicknesses interposed in the path of the rays showed variable transparency to them when recorded on a photographic plate.

Because their nature was then unknown, he gave them the name X-rays. He determined the fluorescence was caused by invisible rays originating from the Crookes tube he was using to study cathode rays later recognized as electrons , which penetrated the opaque black paper wrapped around the tube.

Further experiments revealed that this new type of ray was capable of passing through most substances, including the soft tissues of the body, but left bones and metals visible.

One of his earliest photographic plates from his experiments was a film of his wife Bertha's hand, with her wedding ring clearly visible. To test his observations and enhance his scientific data, Roentgen plunged into seven weeks of meticulous planned and executed experiments.

In January he made his first public presentation before the same society, following his lecture with a demonstration: he made a plate of the hand of an attending anatomist, who proposed the new discovery be named "Roentgen's Rays. The news spread rapidly throughout the world.

Thomas Edison was among those eager to perfect Roentgen's discovery, developing a handheld fluoroscope, although he failed to make a commercial "X-ray lamp" for domestic use. The apparatus for producing X-rays was soon widely available, and studios opened to take "bone portraits," further fueling public interest and imagination. Poems about X-rays appeared in popular journals, and the metaphorical use of the rays popped up in political cartoons, short stories, and advertising.

Detectives touted the use of Roentgen devices in following unfaithful spouses, and lead underwear was manufactured to foil attempts at peeking with "X-ray glasses.

As frivolous as such reactions may seem, the medical community quickly recognized the importance of Roentgen's discovery. Soon attempts were made to insert metal rods or inject radio-opaque substances to give clear pictures of organs and vessels, with mixed results. The first angiography, moving-picture X-rays, and military radiology, were performed in early In addition to the diagnostic powers of X-rays, some experimentalists began applying the rays to treating disease.

He is considered the father of diagnostic radiology, a medical field which diagnoses disease through imaging. Read more Pioneers in Science stories here. Pioneers in Science.

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