Wilhelm Röntgen
27 March 1845 – 10 February 1923
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923) was a German physicist who discovered X-rays in 1895, a breakthrough that revolutionized medical diagnostics and earned him the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. He declined to patent his discovery, believing it should benefit all of humanity.
Lived at the same time
Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Wilhelm Röntgen.
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- John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) Overlapped 78 years →
- Mary Cassatt (1844–1926) Overlapped 78 years →
- Karl Benz (1844–1929) Overlapped 78 years →
- Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) Overlapped 78 years →
Life events
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was born in Lennep (now part of Remscheid), Germany, the only child of a cloth merchant.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHis family moved to the Netherlands, where Röntgen spent his childhood and attended boarding school.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgUnable to enter a Dutch university, Röntgen enrolled at the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, receiving a diploma in mechanical engineering in 1868 and a PhD from the University of Zurich in 1869.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgRöntgen married Anna Bertha Ludwig; her hand would later appear in one of the first X-ray photographs.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgRöntgen obtained his first full professorship, at the University of Giessen.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgRöntgen took the chair of physics at Würzburg, where he later served as rector and made his greatest discovery.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgWhile experimenting with cathode-ray tubes in his Würzburg laboratory, Röntgen detected a new kind of penetrating radiation, which he named X-rays.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgRöntgen accepted the chair of experimental physics at the University of Munich, his final academic post.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgRöntgen received the inaugural Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of X-rays and donated the prize money to the University of Würzburg.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgRöntgen died of intestinal cancer in Munich; his ashes were interred in Giessen.
Source: en.wikipedia.org