Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen Essay -- biographies bio

Wilhelm Conrad RÃâ€"ntgen 1845 - 1923 Wilhelm Conrad RÃ… ¡ntgen is a German physicist who was born on March 27, 1845 at Lennep in Germany. When he was three years old, his family moved to Apeldoorn in The Netherlands, where he attended a boarding school, the Institute of Martinus Herman van Doorn. While he was attending this school, he was very interested in making mechanical devices. This interest of his followed him through the rest of his life. RÃ… ¡ntgen later entered a technical school at Utrecht. In 1872 in Apeldorn, RÃ… ¡ntgen married Anna Bertha Ludwig of ZÃ… ¸rich. They had no children, but in 1887 they adopted a daughter, Josephine Bertha Ludwig, who was the daughter of AnnaÕs only brother. RÃ… ¡ntgen spent most of his years researching physics, thermology, mechanics, and electricity. Although he made some great discoveries in all these fields, his greatest invention was the discovery of a short-wave ray in 1895, which we know now as X-rays. Some other things he studied were the heats of gasses and fluids, the characteristics of quartz, the modification of the planes of polarized light by electromagnetic influences, the variations in the functions of temperature, the compressibility of water and other fluids, and the event of the spreading of oil drops on water. Throughout his life, RÃ… ¡ntgen received many honors. Even though he was well known for his skills, he remained a modest man who never sought honors or money for his research and projects. For instance, he declined various titles and jobs, and donated money to his university that he received from the Nobel Prize. He also refused to take patents on his work, so that the whole world could benefit from his work. Aside from his modesty and generosity, he did accept honors and... ...ays. After RÃ… ¡ntgen discovered X-rays, all fields of medicine were enhanced. Bones and other organs can be seen without surgery, jobs were enhanced, and germs and some types of cancers could be killed. This discovery has great importance to our lives, and has created amazing advances in a variety of fields. An example case that proves the new viewpoint and usage of these X-rays on the human body and medical sciences, was when a few days after Roentgen's initial public announcement of his discoveries, a doctor in America took X-ray photographs of a person with gunshot wounds in his hands. Before RÃ… ¡ntgenÕs discovery, a surgeon would have to locate the shotgun pellets though exploratory surgery, to find and remove them. Now, with the technology of X-rays, an X-ray can be taken and the shotgun pellets would be found without the process of exploratory surgery.