What Kind of Tube did Röntgen use When He Discovered the X-ray?

Abstract

I FEEL that we should not let this great meeting at which we heard so many excellent reports on the use of the roentgen rays go by without calling attention to the fact that we celebrate this year, the fortieth anniversay of the discovery of the x-ray or roentgen ray. Forty years have passed since Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen, Professor of Physics at the University of Wurzburg, saw a strange phenomenon—the bright fluorescence of some barium platinocyanide crystals near an excited evacuated tube. He pursued the study of this effect in a most masterly and thorough manner, and discovered it to be due to a “new kind of rays,” which he called the “x-rays.” Many stories and fables have been woven around this famous discovery, some of which I have attempted to unravel in my book on the life of Rontgen (1). Even now, forty years later, discussions about the details of the discovery continue. Only recently, a discussion was again begun about the type of tube which Rontgen used when he made the discovery. Several article...