Wilhelm Röntgen

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923) was a German experimental physicist at the University of Würzburg whose discovery transformed medical diagnosis. On November 8, 1895, while experimenting with vacuum discharge tubes, he noticed that a nearby screen coated with barium platinocyanide fluoresced even though it was shielded from the tube's visible light, revealing a previously unknown, penetrating form of radiation he called X-rays. He went on to show that these rays passed through soft tissue while being blocked by denser material such as bone, giving physicians a way to see inside the living body without surgery and rapidly founding the field of diagnostic radiology. In 1901 Röntgen became the first recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded in recognition of the extraordinary services he rendered by the discovery of the remarkable rays subsequently named after him.