Wilhelm Roentgen Major Discovery

Wilhelm Konrad von Roentgen made one of the most important medical advances in his history as a physicist. On November 8, 1895, Wilhelm was experimenting with new types of vacuum tubes when by accident he noticed that electricity went through the vacuum that was capable of penetrating dense bodies that cannot be seen with visible light rays. He brought this vacuum tube into a dark room and tried this experiment once more. These rays continued to strike a fluorescent screen ad create a glow. Roentgen astounded by these rays named them X rays because of their unknown nature. He tested these rays on many surfaces and found that X rays didn’t penetrate lead or human bones. Roentgen’s then tried to capture this image of on a photographic plate, which he did successfully, and his first test subject was his wife. She put her hand on the photographic plate while he shined the rays on it. The plate displayed a blurry picture of Anna Bertha’s hand and her wedding ring. Roentgen wrote a paper to the Würzburg Physical Society on December 28, 1895 titled “On a New Kind of Rays. By January this new discovery was heard around the world and it was met with worldwide excitement. Journalists and newspapers all over the globe wrote about his new discovery for even though this was confusing to the hoi polloi, the picture of Bertha’s hand was something they could all relate to.