X-ray
Exceeding the limits while making time stand still, exploring space both infinitely large and small – there had been many experiments since the invention of photography. A new decisive step was taken in 1895, when the physician Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, a professor at the Physics Institute at the University of Wurzburg in Bavaria, discovered the X-ray.
In 1842, the English physicist and doctor, John William Draper, obtained absorption rays on daguerreotype plates of ultraviolet and infrared. In so doing, he proved that the sensitive photographic plate could carry the impression of invisible luminous radiation.
X-rays were a part of this invisible radiation. On 8 November 1895, while he was working on electrical experiments with a Crooks (cathode) tube, Röntgen discovered this radiation. The tube, despite being completely darkened, still emitted a weak light which enabled him to detect the shadow of bones in his hand, which were opaque to the X-rays just like metal, on a panel painted with fluorescent material. On 22 December 1895, he photographed the skeleton of his wife’s hand exposed in this way, an image which became emblematic of the beginnings of radiography.
From this moment on, radiography made rapid progress. Initial exposure times of fifteen minutes to an hour were quickly reduced. Special emulsions were also manufactured by the big photographic firms like Ilford and Eastman.
Röntgen’s discovery allowed him to obtain the first Nobel Prize for Physics in 1901.