{"id":786,"date":"2011-02-11T01:00:03","date_gmt":"2011-02-11T06:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/info-libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/?p=786"},"modified":"2023-07-07T18:17:21","modified_gmt":"2023-07-07T18:17:21","slug":"1896","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/2011\/02\/11\/1896\/","title":{"rendered":"Year 36 – 1896: Prof. R\u00f6ntgen\u2019s “X” Rays and Their Application in the New Photography: With Eleven Illustrations and One Shadowgraph: Being a Compilation from Various Sources of the Results Obtained, with a Popular Exposition of the Same by August Dittmar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Published: Glasgow, 1896<\/p>\n

When German physicist Wilhelm R\u00f6ntgen announced his discovery of X-rays at the end of 1895, the mysterious rays and the eerie photographs they took understandably caused quite a stir among both scientists and the public. R\u00f6ntgen\u2019s photos of balance-weights in a closed box, the chamber of a shotgun, and especially of his wife\u2019s hand with visible bones seemed almost magical.<\/p>\n

R\u00f6ntgen ascertained the existence of X-rays when he was performing experiments using a Crookes tube, a kind of cathode ray tube. Repeating an experiment carried out previously by physicist Philipp Lenard, R\u00f6ntgen happened to notice that a barium platinocyanide detecting screen \u2014 despite being located at a distance beyond that traversable by a cathode ray \u2014 was fluorescing. R\u00f6ntgen christened the unseen rays apparently emanating from the wall of the Crookes tube towards the screen \u201cX-rays.\u201d\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In this period before modern understanding of photons, the prevailing theory of light was based on the existence of the \u201cluminiferous ether,\u201d an undetectable medium filling all space and matter through which light and other electromagnetic waves were transmitted. Visible light was thought to consist of transverse vibrations in the ether (vibrations perpendicular to the direction of light). R\u00f6ntgen hypothesized that X-rays consisted of longitudinal vibrations of the ether. Today, we understand X-rays as the release of potential energy by an atom\u2019s outer electron falling to replace an inner orbital electron dislodged by bombardment from incident electrons.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This 32-page pamphlet was stamped by the MIT Libraries on September 14, 1896, eight months after news of the marvelous X-rays took the world by storm. August Dittmar starts with a description of basic principles of electricity and of cathode ray tubes, then describes the experiments and observations made by R\u00f6ntgen, and ends with some discussion of the \u201cshadowgraphs\u201d X-rays can produce and their medical applications, as well as instructions for building a photographic apparatus.<\/p>\n

In 1901, Wilhelm R\u00f6ntgen was honored for his discovery of X-rays by the awarding of the first Nobel Prize in Physics.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Find it in the library<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published: Glasgow, 1896 When German physicist Wilhelm R\u00f6ntgen announced his discovery of X-rays at the end of 1895, the mysterious rays and the eerie photographs they took understandably caused quite a stir among both scientists and the public. R\u00f6ntgen\u2019s photos of balance-weights in a closed box, the chamber of a shotgun, and especially of his wife\u2019s hand with visible bones seemed almost magical. R\u00f6ntgen ascertained the existence of X-rays when he was performing experiments using a Crookes tube, a kind of cathode ray tube. Repeating an experiment carried out previously by physicist Philipp Lenard, R\u00f6ntgen happened to notice that a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":false,"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4243,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions\/4243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}