Who Invented the X Ray?

X Ray is a kind of electromagnetic and ionizing radiation that has shorter wavelength as compared to the ultraviolet ray. This radiation is very useful for crystallography as well as diagnostic radiography. Because of the functions of the electromagnetic radiation, the term is commonly used to refer to an image that can be created using diagnostic radiography. The X Ray is helpful in identifying various medical conditions so it is best that we recognize the people behind the development of this diagnostic technique.

History
Who invented the X Ray? X Ray was invented by several scientists who examined cathode rays in 1875. The scientists involved in this special project were Wilhelm Rontgen, Philip Lennard and Johann Hittorf. Rontgen is a physics professor in Germany who studied the electromagnetic rays produced by Crookes tubes. He published a paper about his discovery on December 28, 1895. He called the ray as X since it is still unknown. Rontgen received a Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention.

Lennard and Hittorf both work with Rontgen in the analysis of cathode rays. Hittorf found that there would be flawed shadows when unexposed photographic plates were placed near the Crookes tubes. However, Hittorf did not investigate the shadows.

Additional Information and Other Important Details
Other important personalities in the invention of X Ray Ivan Pulyui, Nikola Tesla, Fernando Sanford as well as Thomas Edison. Pulyui was an experimental physics professor at the Prague Polytechnic. Several weeks the publication of Rontgen’s paper on the X ray photograph, Pulyui published a report in journals about high quality X Ray photographs in London as well as in Paris.

Tesla created a special and effective single electrode X Ray tube. He published a paper about his invention in April 1887. In the development of the tube, Tesla used the Bremsstrahlung process. Several years after Tesla developed the unique tube, Thomas Edison created the fluoroscope. Since the development of this device in March 1896, the fluoroscope was used as the standard device for examinations of medical X Rays.

During the 20th century, a great number of scientists also contributed to the history of X Ray. The effective use of the ionization radiation in medicine was proposed by Major Hall Edwards at Birmingham in England in 1908. The popularity of the use of the radiation improved until in the 1950s, the first X Ray microscope was introduced. On July 23, 1999, the Chandra X Ray Observatory was opened. The laboratory served as a secure place to conduct experiments related to dangerous processes outside the Earth that would produce the ionization radiation.