Wilhelm Röntgen

Wilhelm Röntgen (1845-1923) was a German physicist, who is famous for discovering X-rays in electrically charged vacuum tubes. This led to the development of medical radiography.

Biography
In november of 1895, while experimenting with electrically charged vacuum tubes, Wilhelm found that rays were emitted that made a fluorescent screen glow, which he called X-rays. He took an x-ray of his wife, Anna Röntgen's, hand, which showed that the rays penetrated her skin and muscle, but were impeded by denser bones - and her ring. Wilhelm concluded that the x-rays passed through human skin and exposed photographic plates.

Fields of Physics

 * Medical radiography
 * Electromagnetism