"Sunday, November 8 marks the 120th anniversary of one of the greatest moments in the history of science: an obscure German physics professor’s discovery of the X-ray. His name was Wilhelm Roentgen, and in the six weeks that followed, he devoted nearly every waking hour to exploring the properties of the new rays before announcing his discovery to the world. Within just months, scientists worldwide were experimenting with the newly discovered rays. Roentgen’s discovery and its subsequent revolutionary impact represent one of science’s greatest stories.
Roentgen’s discovery opened a window on the previously invisible interior of the human body and spawned the existence of an entirely new medical specialty, radiology. As a practicing radiologist, I’ve been amazed to see how x-rays have changed our views of ourselves and our world – so much so that I even wrote book about it, X-ray Vision. The story is vast, but some of its key features can be summarized here."
http://theconversation.com/on-the-120th-anniversary-of-the-x-ray-a-look-at-how-it-changed-our-view-of-the-world-50154
