Röntgen Rays

At first I thought I would make this page into a jokey little game where you would have to try and guess which of the facts were deliberate falsifications. But then I thought science is too important to muck about with like this, so I?ll try the game on a different subject perhaps, another day.

I think this page will have to be dedicated to Willhelm Röntgen who was the first person to take an X-ray photograph, as we recognise them today. You can find a copy of his first X-ray here.

In Germany X-rays are still often referred to as Röntgen Rays.
It was Sir William Crookes who made it all possible though, when he invented the Crookes tube. In the late 1800s, physicists including Hittorf, Hertz, Helmholtz, Edison and Tesla carried out various experiments with Crookes tubes.

These vacuum tubes ionised the residual air within by applying a very high voltage across two electrodes. This accelerated the ions within the gas and created cathode rays. With even higher currents, X-rays were produced and were discovered by a number of scientists when they found shadows appearing on photographic plates.

But it was Röntgen who won, in fact, the very first Nobel Prize for Physics in 1901 for his discovery ?of the remarkable rays named after him?.

The first X-ray photo taken by him was of his wife?s left hand. When she saw it, she exclaimed ?I have seen my death?.

The production of X-rays is somewhat more complex than the brief outline I have given above. Once again, don't try this at home children. Not without a lead apron anyway.