DISCOVERING X-RAYS

X-rays are a type of radiation can penetrate materials that light can not. These rays allow us to "see" inside objects (for example, the human body) without opening them.
The story begins with X-ray experiments by the British scientist William Crookes , who investigated in the nineteenth century the effect of certain gases to energy shocks. These experiments took place in a vacuum tube, and electrodes to generate high voltage current. Él lo llamó tubo de Crookes . He called Crookes tube. Despite the discovery, Crookes did not continue investigating this effect. Nikola Tesla , in 1887, he began to study this effect created by Crookes tubes. One of the consequences of their research was to warn the scientific community to the danger of biological organisms which involves exposure to these radiations.

In 1885, 8 November, the German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen at the University of Würzburg in Germany, discovered a new form of penetrating radiation. He found that by passing electricity through a vacuum he produced a new type of high energy radiation that he called X- (for unknown) rays.

To test his discovery, Roentgen made an X-ray image of his wife Bertha's hand, clearly showing the bones of her hand and a pretty hefty wedding ring.
Roentgen also discovered that a beam of Xrays could pass through the body to produce an image on a photographic plate. Roentgen found that while bones appeared as clear images on the plate, soft tissues, such as muscle and skin, were much less distinct.

LOOKING INSIDE THE BODY
Within weeks, Roentgen’s discovery was greeted as one of the most significant in the history of medicine. For the first time doctors could look inside the living body without having to cut it open. Today, X-rays are used routinely to detect broken bones and other disorders.