One hundred years ago this month Wilhelm Röntgen, a professor of physics at the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, discovered x rays while experimenting with cathode rays in a Crookes tube. Word of the discovery spread quickly, and by early 1896 the properties of x rays were under investigation in numerous physics laboratories in Europe and North America. By the turn of the century, physicians and physicists were exploiting the penetrating character of x rays to look inside the human body without cutting it open. They were also beginning to explore the therapeutic properties of x radiation.
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© 1995 American Institute of Physics.
1995
American Institute of Physics
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