Skip to main content

X-ray history

The X-rays were discovered in 1895 and from there they became a very revolutionary application in many branches of science, from astronomy to radiographs that we have not done so many times.the 120th anniversary of the X-rays knowing his inventor and the research that led him to such an important scientific advance.

Article index

Who invented the X-rays?

The inventor or, rather, the person who discovered the X-rays was Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen , a German physicist who was focused on the field of electromagnetics Nothing else to present his discovery, Rontgen's theory received great attention from critics and public, and was translated into French, English or Russian.

Although it is not a name as well known today as that of others you celebrate writers, the name of Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen is written in gold letters in the medical field, where he has had and has and numerous applications.The importance of his discovery was such in his day that he was the first Nobel Prize winner in Physics in 1901 .

But how did he really discover them? Was that what I was looking for or, like so many other inventions, arose almost by chance?

How were X-rays discovered?

The November 8, 1895 the physicist Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen , was conducting experiments to analyze the violet fluorescence of the cathode rays , for which he used a device called Crookes tube .But an unexpected effect caught my attention: a subtle yellow-greenish glow on a cardboard with a solution of barium platinum-cyanide crystals.This prompted some small tests to see what was happening.

Rontgen began to move the solution away more and more, checking that the glow I had.It was a very penetrating radiation but invisible to the human eye.The experiments continued for several weeks to try to understand the properties of these rays, so far never studied, which led to a new discovery.When trying to make a photograph I check that the plates were veiled.

This new event led him to think Rontgen that the rays influenced the photographic emulsion, which triggered new tests.Soon I see that the rays crossed the matter and impressed their form in the photography .At the time he decided to experiment with the human body.His wife exposed her hand to the rays and placed it on the plate.They thus obtained the first x-ray of the human body (including her ring!), a advance that would later revolutionize medicine.

Rontgen decided or call his discovery "incognita rays", or "x-rays". His studies had a high impact on the scientific community, obtaining in 1901 the Nobel Prize of Physics .

X-ray applications

X-ray history

Most of us have thought about it,« How it would be nice to have X-rays to see Pepito or the neighbor of the third without clothes ".Do not deny it.At the moment there is no evidence that such an apparatus exists, and if there were we do not believe that it would last long in the market.But X-rays have other applications of much more relevance.

As we know, X-rays have given rise to specialties such as radiology , which allows you to see the inside of the human body to analyze the state of bones or organs.

This type of "technology" is also often used for reasons of security .For example, special security forces have X-ray equipment to see through certain materials, while in other places, such as airports , they are used to check if passengers carry something hidden.

X-ray history

However, X-rays may also have other uses which are not as well known among the middle population.For example, they are used to study fossils and wreckage from millions of years ago without damaging it.

Technological advances allow various radiologies to be made of objects consisting of a kind of transverse plates that, all joined together, would form the object itself in 3D.This technology, assisted by computers, is used, among other things, for the ham salting process .

Finally, another of its uses has to see with art and design; X-rays are also used to find out if a picture is authentic or to determine the purity of precious stones .

You can find much more information about X-rays in this History Channel documentary:

Images

Google

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Gustavo Adolfo Becquer Biography

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (Gustavo Adolfo Domínguez Bastida; Seville, 1836-Madrid, 1870) Spanish poet.Along with Rosalía de Castro, he is the highest representative of post-romantic poetry, a trend that had as distinctive features the intimate theme and an apparent expressive simplicity, far from the vehemence rhetoric of romanticism. Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (detail of a portrait made by his brother Valeriano, c.1862) Bécquer's work exerted a strong He influenced later figures such as Rubén Darío, Antonio Machado, Juan Ramón Jiménez and the poets of the generation of '27, and critics judge him to be the initiator of contemporary Spanish poetry.But more than a great name in literary history, Bécquer is above all a living poet, popular in every sense of the word, whose verses, with a moving voice and winged beauty, have enjoyed and continue to enjoy the predilection of millions of readers.. Biography Son and brother of painters, he was orphaned at the age of ten and live...

Jan Hus Biography

Jan Hus (Also called John or John Huss; Husinec, Bohemia, 1369-Constance, 1415) Promoter of the Czech ecclesiastical reform.He was born into a poor peasant family in southwestern Bohemia.However, he managed to study Theology and Arts at the University of Prague and ordained himself a priest (1400).In 1402 he was appointed rector of the University, supported by the Czech particularist sentiment against Germanic domination. Jan Hus Under the influence of the English heretic John Wycliffe, Hus began in 1405 to preach against the excessive wealth of the Church and the immorality of the clergy, demanding a return to the purity of the evangelical message, preaching in the Czech language that the people could understand, and communion under both species.Its influence was increased by the crisis in which the Church of Rome was plunged by the "Schism of the West", as well as by the Czech nationalist reaction against the German minority (started with the struggle for control of ...

Joseph H. Maclagan Wedderburn Biography

Joseph H.Maclagan Wedderburn (Forfar, 1882-Princeton, 1948) British mathematician.Professor at Princeton University, he was editor of the Proceedings of the Edinburgh mathematical society (1905-1909) and the Annals of mathematics (1912-1928).He stated a theorem ( Wedderburn's theorem ) according to which every finite field is commutative.

Jose Risueño Biography

José Risueño (Granada, 1665- id ., 1732) Spanish sculptor and painter.Follower of A.Cano, P.de Mena and D.de Mora, he worked in Granada, where he made the figures of the chapel of the Sacrament of the Carthusian monastery, the San Juan de Dios of the church of San Matías and the Crucified Christ of Sacromonte.It is famous for its polychrome baked clay figurines ( Penitent Magdalene ).

Gustav Kirchhoff Biography

Gustav Kirchhoff (Königsberg, Prussia, 1824-Berlin, 1887) German physicist.A close collaborator of chemist Robert Bunsen, he applied spectrographic analysis methods (based on the analysis of radiation emitted by an energetically excited body) to determine the composition of the Sun. Gustav Kirchhoff In 1845 he enunciated the so-called Kirchhoff laws, applicable to the calculation of voltages, intensities and resistances in the yes of an electrical mesh; understood as an extension of the law of conservation of energy, they were based on the theory of physicist Georg Simon Ohm, according to which the voltage that causes the passage of an electric current is proportional to the intensity of the current. In 1847 he served as a Privatdozent (non-salaried professor) at the University of Berlin, and after three years he accepted the post of professor of physics at the University of Breslau.In 1854 he was appointed professor at the University of Heidelberg, where he befriended Rober...

Fortunato Lacamera Biography

Fortunato Lacamera (Buenos Aires, 1887- id ., 1951) Argentine painter.Belonging to the group of painters from the La Boca neighborhood, he also contributed to the founding of the group for the promotion of art Impulso, of which he was president.His works show the streets, interiors and motifs of the waterfront.

Gaspar Gil Polo Biography

Gaspar Gil Polo (Valencia, c .1530-Barcelona, ​​1584) Spanish writer.There is very little news of his life.Part of his fame as a poet is that Cervantes dedicated a royal octave to him in La Galatea (1583) and Juan de Timoneda quotes him in his Sarao de amor (1561).His fundamental work is the Diana in love (1564), continuation of the Diana by Jorge de Montemayor. Illustration of Diana in love , of Gaspar Gil Polo Born into a family of municipal officials in Valencia, Gaspar Gil Polo became a lawyer and held various administrative positions in the city.Felipe II appointed him commissioner in the principality of Catalonia, so in 1580 he moved to Barcelona.He must have been known as a poet among his contemporaries, since Juan de Timoneda quotes him in a romance of 1561, but at present only some of his loose poems are preserved. In 1564 he published in Valencia the five books of Diana in love , a pastoral novel that constitutes a continuation of Jorge de Montemayor's...

Alexandr Izvolski Biography

Alexandr Izvolski (Moscow, 1856-Paris, 1919) Russian politician and diplomat, main architect of the alliance between Russia and England in the years before the First World War. Alexandr Izvolski Educated at the Imperial Lyceum in Saint Petersburg, he soon held important diplomatic posts: he was Russian ambassador to the Vatican, Yugoslavia, Germany, Japan and Denmark.Between 1906 and 1910 he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs; after that he was appointed ambassador to France. In 1907, Izvolski signed a pact that strengthened the alliance between France and England against Germany.Thanks to this pact, the British and the Russians divided Persia, which was divided into three zones of influence: a British, a Russian and a neutral zone between the two (Afghanistan was under the protection of Great Britain).This pact, together with the Franco-Russian alliance of 1890 and the Anglo-French agreement of 1904, formed the embryo of what would later become the Triple Entente. In Oct...

Josiah wedgwood Biography

Josiah Wedgwood (Burslem, Staffordshire, 1730- id ., 1795) British potter and industrialist.Descendant of a family of potters, he established his own workshop to dedicate himself to the manufacture of glazed pottery with salt and fine earthenware.In 1762 he founded the Etruria factory, with T.Bentley, dedicated to the manufacture of neoclassical ornamental items, as well as portraits of contemporary characters in round and oval medallions.Numerous sculptors worked in this manufacture, including John Flaxman.