The physicist Wilhelm Konrad Runjen (1845-1923), who first observed X-rays on November 8th, 1895, made a significant scientific advancement that ultimately helps many fields, especially medicine, by making the invisible visible.
Runjen’s discovery occurred by chance in his laboratory in the city of Fortburg, Germany, where he was testing whether the cathode rays could pass through the glass when he noticed a glow coming from a nearly chemically painted screen.
According to the Hittori website, the rays that generated this X-ray glow did so because of their unidentified nature.
X -rays are electromagnetic energy waves that work similar to light rays, but with a shorter wavelength about 1000 times more than light waves, Runjen hidden in his laboratory and conducted a series of experiments to better understand his discovery, and he learned that X -rays penetrate human meat but they do not penetrate high -density materials like Bones or lead and can be photographed.
As a result of Runjen’s discovery, which was hailed as a medical miracle, X-rays quickly rose to prominence as a crucial diagnostic tool in medicine, enabling practitioners to observe the human body without the need for surgery. The first time an X-ray was used on a battlefield was in 1897, during the Balkan War, to identify patients who had been shot or had broken bones.
Scientists were quick to realize the benefits of X -rays, but they were slower in understanding the harmful effects of radiation.
At first, it was thought that X-rays didn’t harm meat like light because they passed through it. However, within a few years, studies started describing burns and skin damage brought on by X-ray exposure, and in 1904, Clarence Dali, Thomas Edison’s assistant who worked extensively with X-rays, passed away from skin cancer. Daly’s death caused some scientists to start taking the risks of radiation more seriously, but they are still completely incomprehensible.
Indeed, during the thirties, forties and fifties of the last century, many American shoe stores appeared on Florian perspectives to install shoes that used X -rays to enable customers to see the bones in their feet, and this practice was identified as a risky work.
In spite of receiving numerous honours for his achievements, including the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901, Wilhelm Runjen remained modest and never attempted to secure a patent for his inventions.
Today, X-ray technology is frequently used in devices like airport security traffic scanners, which analyse materials and are used in medicine.
A German scientist discovers X-rays on this day. I am familiar with his tale.
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