Röntgen, Wilhelm Conrad

Röntgen, Wilhelm Conrad: see Roentgen.

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Röntgen, Wilhelm Conrad

 or Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen.

(credit: Historia-Photo)

(born March 27, 1845, Lennep, Prussia—died Feb. 10, 1923, Munich, Ger.) German physicist. He taught at the Universities of Giessen (1879–88), Würzburg (1888–1900), and Munich (1900–20). In 1895 he discovered rays that did not exhibit properties such as reflection or refraction and mistakenly thought they were unrelated to light. Because of their mysterious nature, he called them X-rays. He later produced the first X-ray photographs, showing the interiors of metal objects and the bones in his wife's hand. He also did important research in a wide variety of other fields. In 1901 he was awarded the first Nobel Prize for Physics.