On March 27, 1845 Wilhelm Konrad Roentgen was born in Lennep, Germany. He received his early education in the Netherlands and then studied under Clausius, teacher of Willard Gibbs, in Zurich, Switzerland. At Würzburg he became assistant to Kundt. In 1874 he became privatdozent at Strasbourg University. In 1875 Roentgen was made professor of mathematics and physics at the Agricultural Academy of Hohenheim. He returned to Strasbourg in 1876, where he became extraordinary professor. In 1879 he was appointed ordinary professor of physics and director of the Physical Institute of Giessen, and in 1885 he became professor at Würzburg. Here in 1895, at the age of 50, Roentgen discovered the x-rays.

In 1895, while experimenting with a highly exhausted vacuum tube (Crookes) on the conduction of electricity through gases, he observed the fluorescence of a barium platinocyanide screen which happened to be lying near. Further studies disclosed that this radiation could pass through various substances which are opaque to ordinary light and could also affect a photographic plate. On Dec. 28, 1895 Roentgen¹ communicated his discovery of the x-rays to the president of the Physicalisch-medicinische Gesellschaft of Würzburg. On Jan. 23, 1896 Roentgen for the first time publicly presented his discovery before the Physical Medical Society of the University of Würzburg. Kölliker suggested the name roentgen rays. For this discovery Roentgen received the Rumford medal of the Royal Society in 1896 jointly with Philip Lenard, who, with Hertz, showed that a portion of the cathode rays could pass through a thin film of a metal such as aluminum. In 1901 Roentgen received the Nobel prize for physics.

When attempts were made to credit his discovery to his assistant, Roentgen was deeply hurt and became accessible only to his students and a few friends. He died in Munich on Feb. 10, 1923.