History Fact Finder | Medicine and Disease - Who Discovered The X Ray?

Who discovered the X ray?

German physicist (a person who studies the relationship between matter and energy) Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen (1845–1923) discovered X rays in 1895 while he was experimenting with electricity. Because he did not really understand what these rays were, he called them X rays because in mathematics X stands for the unknown. By 1900, however, doctors were using X rays to take pictures (called radiographs) of bones, which helped them treat injuries more effectively. But scientists also discovered that overexposure to X rays could cause burns, even death. In 1901, Roentgen was awarded the first Nobel Prize for physics for his discovery of this short-wave ray.

Further Information: Mulcahy, Robert. Medical Technology: Inventing the Instruments. Minneapolis, Minn.: Oliver Press, 1997, pp. 73–88; NASA. "Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen." Imagine the Universe. [Online] Available

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