First Ever X-ray
ADDPMP780An x-ray is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength ranging from 10pm to 10nm (approximately 1,000 times shorter than the wavelength of light).
German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845– 1923) was the first person to observe x-rays, accidentally. On November 8, 1895, in Wurzburg, Bavaria, Röntgen was testing whether cathode rays could pass through glass when he noticed a glow coming from a nearby chemically-coated screen. Through experimentation, he found that this “light” would pass through human tissue too, rendering the bones and tissue beneath visible. Because he did not know what the rays were, he called them ‘X’ meaning ‘unknown’ rays.
Röntgen’s discovery was labelled a medical miracle and x-rays soon became an important diagnostic tool in medicine, allowing doctors to see inside the human body for the first time without surgery. In 1897, x-rays were first used on a military battlefield, during the Greco-Turkish War, to find bullets and broken bones inside patients. Röntgen was awarded the first Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery in 1901.














































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































