Topic > The Discovery of X-rays - 597

Since ancient times probably one of the most popular questions among people was how to reconstruct their bones and how they are joined together. Furthermore, it was almost impossible for surgeons to locate where the bullets were located in the body and consequently their successful removal was equated with magic. This situation continued until the end of 1895, when a German physicist, Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, discovered X-rays and consequently invented a mechanism for filming human bones in an image ( Tice 2007, 1).W. Roentgen was an ordinary person, without a high school diploma and without having the name of an extraordinary physicist (The History of X-Rays 2003). However, he finished the Polytechnic School of Zurich, Germany. He later worked as an assistant to Dr. August Kundt, then known as a famous theoretical physicist, and later became head of the physics department at the University of Würzburg. Roentgen was not a favorite teacher of his students, however, he was always inclined to carry out practical parts of the studies. His wife was a chronically ill woman, and he mostly sat with her at home, so she was not a very sociable person (ibid). W. Roentgen's studies were based on cathode rays in the Crookes tube and the fluorescent screen, which were in use for almost several decades. However, the main point is that Roentgen focused on the lights that are deflected out of the tubes into the darkroom. He wondered whether the new cathode rays propagated directly, as cathode rays themselves do, or what the difference was between them. He also tried to investigate their points of reflection and refraction. The materials used in the experiments were constructed by himself. After six weeks of experimentation in his laboratory, he came to the conclusion that these new rays, simply called But with the help of ebonite and aluminum prism Roentgen managed to refract X-rays in photographic plates. After further experiments he noticed that these rays can easily pass through powdered rock salt and zinc dust. Visible light cannot pass through these materials due to their refractive and reflective capabilities. Finally Roentgen concluded that X-rays can hardly be refracted and reflected, originate from the cathode tubes of luminous fluorescein, and are distinguished from cathode rays by their insensitivity to magnets (Assmus 1995, 13-15).