28/03/2026
Happy Birthday, Wilhelm Röntgen! The father of X-Rays and diagnostic radiology was born exactly 181 years ago on this day.
Wilhelm Röntgen coined the name X-ray when he used these rays to create an image of his wife’s hand on a photographic plate revealing her bones. In 1901, this achievement made him the first person to ever win the Nobel Prize in Physics.
While many of us are probably most familiar with Röntgen’s X-rays when seeing doctors treat broken bones, and in some languages, X-rays are even called röntgen, but X-rays actually have a wide variety of uses. When used in art and cultural artefact restoration, restorers can assess damage and uncover details hidden in artefacts, unlocking a wealth of information about the past. They are also used to check the quality of everyday items like car tires, cables and wires, and even airplanes through a method called non-destructive testing (NDT), which draws on a combination of X-rays and gamma rays. Scientists are also looking at how they can use X-rays to further studies on nuclear fusion.
Today we can thank Röntgen and the scientists who built on his discovery for the many innovative ways we now use X-rays to improve lives and help people around the world.
