Wilhelm Röntgen

I did not think; I investigated.

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (27 March 1845 – 10 February 1923) was a German physicist, who, on 8 November 1895, produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range today known as x-rays or Röntgen rays, an achievement that earned him the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901.

Sourced

It seemed at first a new kind of invisible light. It was clearly something new, something unrecorded.

• I did not think; I investigated.
  • As quoted in "The New Marvel in Photography", by H. J .W. Dam, in McClure's magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5 (April 1896), p. 416, from Project Gutenberg

• In a few minutes there was no doubt about it. Rays were coming from the tube which had a luminescent effect upon the paper. I tried it successfully at greater and greater distances, even at two metres. It seemed at first a new kind of invisible light. It was clearly something new, something unrecorded.
  • As quoted in "The New Marvel in Photography", by H. J .W. Dam, in McClure's magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5 (April 1896), p. 416

Quotes about Röntgen

• Röntgen has familiarized us with an order of vibrations of extreme minuteness compared with the smallest waves with which we have hitherto been acquainted, and of dimensions comparable with the distances between the centers of the atoms of which the material universe is built up; and there is no reason to suppose that we have here reached the limit of frequency.
  • William Crookes, in his inaugural address as President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, published in Nature No. 1506, Vol. 58 (8 September 1898), p. 438

External links

• Biography at the official Nobel site
• Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen