Nov 22, 20212 min read

How 'X-Rays' were discovered? | Why they were named as 'X'-Rays? | Brain Corner

'X-Rays'

In late 1895, a German physicist, W.C. Roentgen was working with a cathode ray tube in his laboratory. He was working with tubes similar to our fluorescent light bulbs. He evacuated the tube of all air, filled it with a special gas, and passed a high electric voltage through it. When he did this, the tube produced a fluorescent glow. Roentgen shielded the tube with a heavy black paper and found that a green colored fluorescent light could be seen on a screen set a few feet away from the tube. He realized that he had produced a previously unknown "invisible light", or ray, that was being emitted from the tube; a ray that was capable of passing through the heavy paper covering the tube. Through additional experiments, he also found that the new ray would pass through most substances, casting shadows of solid objects on pieces of film. He named the new ray as X-ray because in Mathematics "X" was used to indicate an unknown quantity.

In his discovery Roentgen found that the X-Ray would pass through the human tissues leaving the bones visible. The news of Roentgen's discovery spread quickly throughout the world. Scientists everywhere could duplicate his experiment because the cathode tube was well known during this period. In early 1896, X-Rays were being utilized chemically in the United States for such things as bone fractures and gun shot wounds.

Roentgen may have discovered X-Rays, but the credit for ushering it in a new era of easy medical diagnosis must go to his wife. On December 22, 1895, after having waited long enough for Roentgen to come for supper, Mrs. Roentgen walked into her husband's laboratory and quite accidentally, placed her hands on a photographic plate that Roentgen was using in one of his experiments. And lo and behold, there was a strange looking 'photograph' of her hand. The rest is history... Roentgen won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901 for the discovery of X-Rays.