1-149-792 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, German physicist, (c1924). On 8 November 1895, Roentgen (or Röntgen, 1845-1923) discovered what came to be known as 'X-rays'. He noticed that when a current was passed though a Crookes tube covered with a piece of black card, a nearby piece of paper painted with barium cyanide fluoresced. Later, he found that these X-rays passed through flesh, enabling the bones to be clearly seen. In 1901, he was the first recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics.