Wilhelm roentgen

Wilhelm Röntgen's first medical X-ray by his wife Anna Bertha Ludwig

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (Lennep, March 27, 1845 – Munich, February 10, 1923) was a German mechanical engineer and physicist, from the University of Wurzburg. On November 8, 1895, he produced electromagnetic radiation at wavelengths corresponding to what are now called X-rays. In the following years, Röntgen published studies "on a new type of rays", which were translated into English, French, Italian and russian.

For his discovery he was awarded the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. The award was officially bestowed "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered in the discovery of the remarkable lightning bolts named after him." Röntgen donated the monetary reward to his university. In the same way that Pierre Curie would do several years later, he refused to register any patents related to his discovery for ethical reasons. He also did not want the rays to be named after him, although in German X-rays are still known as Röntgenstrahlen (Röntgen rays).

The University of Wurzburg awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine. Also named in his honor is the unit of measurement for radiation exposure, established in 1928 (see Roentgen (unit)).

Biography

Röntgen was born in March 1845 in Lennep, Germany, the son of a weaver. When he was three years old, his family moved to the Netherlands. There he received primary education from him at the Martinnus Herman van Doorn Institute. He then attended the Utrecht Technical School, from where he was expelled for making a caricature of one of his teachers, an act he denied committing. When he was 17 years old, he entered the Technical School of Utrecht; in 1865 he began studies at the Zurich Polytechnic School (Switzerland), and in 1868 he received his degree in mechanical engineering, receiving his doctorate a year later. He worked as a professor of physics in Strasbourg in 1876; at the German University of Giessen, in 1879; and in the institute of physics of the Würzburg University, in 1888. In 1900 he was awarded the chair of physics at the University of Munich; he was also appointed director of a new physical institute created in that same city.

Trajectory

In 1874 he taught at the University of Strasbourg and in 1875 he became a professor at the Hohenheim Academy of Agriculture (Wurttemberg). In 1876 he returned to Strasbourg as Professor of Physics and in 1879 he became director of the physics department at the University of Giessen. In 1888 he was appointed chief physicist at the University of Würzburg and in 1900 chief physicist at the University of Munich, at the special request of the Bavarian government.

On November 8, 1895, working with a cathode ray tube, he discovered X-rays, winning the Nobel Prize in 1901. X-rays began to be applied in all fields of medicine, including urology. Within a year of the first Roentgen report, 49 books and more than 1,200 articles in scientific journals had been written. Later Guyon, McIntyre and Swain used radiology for the diagnosis of stone disease. It is one of the high points of medicine at the end of the 19th century, on which numerous diagnoses of nosological entities that were difficult to diagnose were based.

Some posts

Books

• Vragen op het anorganisch gedeelte van het scheikundig Readboek van Dr. J. W. Gunning. Schoonhoven Utrecht 1865
• Studien über Gase. Inaugural Dissertation, Zurich 1869

Magazine Articles

• «Über die Bestimmung des Verhältnisses der spezifischen Wärmen der Luft» In: Ann. der Physik und Chemie 2. Folge, (141): 552-566, 1870

• «Über ein Aneroidbarometer mit Spiegelablesung.»SpiegelablesungSpiegelablesung In: Ann. der Physik und Chemie 3. Folge, (4): 305311, 1878

• «Über die elektromagnetische Drehung der Polarisationsebene des Lichtes in den Gasen» In: Ann. der Physik und Chemie 3. Folge, (8): 278-298, 1879 – with August Kundt

• «Über Töne, welche durch intermittierende Bestrahlung eines Gases entstehen.» In: Ann. der Physik und Chemie 3. Folge, (12): 155-159, 1881

• «Über den Einfluß des Druckes auf die Viskosität der Flüssigkeiten, speziell des Wassers.» In: Ann. der Physik und Chemie 3. Folge, (22): 510, 1884

• «Neue Versuche über die Absorption von Wärme durch Wasserdampf.» In: Ann. der Physik und Chemie 3. Folge, (23): 1-49 & 259-298, 1884; chap. 1, cap. 2

• «Über die durch Bewegung eines im homogen elektrischen Felde befindlichen Dielektrikums hervorgerufene elektrodynamische Kraft.» In: Mathematische und Naturwissenschaftliche Mitteilungen aus den Sitzungsberichten der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. Physikalisch-Mathematische Klasse, (7): 23-29, 1888

• «Über die Dicke von kohärenten Ölschichten auf der Oberfläche des Wassers.» In: Ann. der Physik und Chemie 3. Folge, (41): 321-329, 1890

• «Über die Konstitution des flüssigen Wassers.» In: Ann. der Physik und Chemie 3. Folge, (45): 91, 1892

• «Über eine neue Art von Strahlen. Vorläufige Mitteilung.» In: Aus den Sitzungsberichten der Würzburger Physik.-medic. Gesellschaft Würzburg: 137-147, 1895;

• «Eine neue Art von Strahlen. 2. Mitteilung.» In: Aus den Sitzungsberichten der Würzburger Physik.-medic. Gesellschaft Würzburg: 11-17, 1896

• «Weitere Beobachtungen über die Eigenschaften der X-Strahlen.» In: Mathematische und Naturwissenschaftliche Mitteilungen aus den Sitzungsberichten der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. Physikalisch-Mathematische Klasse: 392-406, 1897

• «Über die Elektrizitätsleitung in einigen Kristallen und über den Einfluß der Bestrahlung darauf.» In: Ann. der Physik 4. Folge, (41): 449-498, 1913 – with Abram Fjodorowitsch Ioffe

• «Pyro- und piezo-elektrische Untersuchungen.» In: Ann. der Physik 4. Folge (45): 737-800, 1914

• «Über die Elektrizitätsleitung in einigen Kristallen und über den Einfluß einer Bestrahlung darauf.» In: Ann. der Physik 4. Folge (64): 1,195, 1921 – with Abram Fjodorowitsch Ioffe

Eponymy

• The lunar crater Röntgen bears this name in his memory.
• The asteroid (6401) Roentgen also commemorates its name.