Wilhelm Röntgen was a German physicist best known for his discovery of X-rays, a groundbreaking development in the field of medical imaging. Born on March 27, 1845, Röntgen made his famous discovery in 1895 while experimenting with cathode rays. He observed that a fluorescent screen in his laboratory began to glow even when it was several feet away from the cathode ray tube, leading him to conclude that a new type of ray was being emitted.

Ancestors (6)

  1. 19th-century German physicists
  2. 19th-century physicists
  3. Physicists by century
  4. Physicists
  5. Physics
  6. Home

View article source

Discussion (0) New discussion

There are no discussions about this article yet.

Articles by others on the same topic (1)

Wilhelm Röntgen by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-24 Updated 2026-10-31
View more
Figure 1.
Portrait of Wilhelm Röntgen
. Wellcome Library, London / Wellcome Images, M0010903; reproduced in Otto Glasser’s Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen (1931). Original photographer unspecified. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International., via Wikimedia Commons. Source.
The Röntgen X-ray discovery experiment connected a covered discharge tube, a fluorescent screen and photographic exposures. The X-ray article follows those tests into modern source and attenuation models.
Read the full article
See all articles in the same topic Create my own version