X-rays - The Revolutionary Peek Inside the Human Body
In 1895, Roentgen was experimenting with cathode rays when he noticed...

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In 1895, physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röentgen was tinkering around in his lab with some electrical experiments when he accidentally made a startling and world-changing discovery. Röentgen wasn’t setting out to revolutionize medicine, but that’s exactly what he did when he stumbled upon X-rays, a form of invisible light that could see through solid objects.
The Mysterious Glow
Röentgen was experimenting with cathode rays, using a tube that emitted light when electric currents passed through it. One day, he noticed something strange: a fluorescent glow on a nearby screen, even though the tube was covered and the room was dark. Curious, he realized that whatever was causing this glow was passing through solid objects.
He named this mysterious new form of radiation "X-rays", with the "X" standing for unknown. But Röentgen wasn't done experimenting. He soon placed his hand in front of the ray, and to his amazement, he saw the bones of his hand projected onto the screen. What he saw was the world’s first X-ray image, showing his hand's skeletal structure!
A World-Changing Moment
When Röentgen’s wife saw her own hand X-rayed—complete with a ghostly image of her wedding ring—she was horrified and exclaimed, “I have seen my death!” Luckily, Röentgen wasn’t discouraged, and soon the medical world realized the profound implications of his discovery. For the first time, doctors could see inside the human body without surgery, forever changing the way we diagnose injuries and illnesses.
X-ray Fever
Röentgen’s discovery sparked X-ray fever across the globe, with hospitals and researchers racing to adopt this new technology. Suddenly, broken bones, bullets lodged in bodies, and even certain diseases could be spotted with ease. Röentgen won the first-ever Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901 for his groundbreaking work.


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