120th Anniversary of the Discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, November 1895

Abstract

This short review celebrates the discovery of X-rays 120 years ago. It describes the experiments and observations made by Röntgen in Würzburg, which led to the discovery; illustrates examples of Röntgen’s radiographs which were referred to in his first paper {they were not published in 1896 but were only supplied to some of his physicist colleagues throughout the world} Eine Neue Art von Strahlen; and references the only three papers Röntgen ever wrote on X-rays. What Röntgen thought of his great discovery can be found from the only two interviews ever published: in April 1896 by the American journalist H J W Dam of McClure’s Magazine; and in April 1898 by the British manufacturer of X-ray apparatus and a leading member of the Röntgen Society in London, Adolf Isenthal, who visited Röntgen on behalf of the Society. Röntgen only gave one public lecture. This was on 23 January 1896 at the Physikalisch-medizinischen Gesellschaft in Würzburg.