100 Historical Stories That Unlock Teenage Wisdom

Chapter 62 10 Roentgen's Discovery of X-rays

Chapter 610 Roentgen discovers X-rays

——Try it again without leaving regrets. Doing things generally requires a fixed goal, but scientific research does not necessarily.Really great scientists care about the research process, not any specific results.

On a cold evening in November 1895, on the campus of the University of Wurzburg in Germany, a professor who was over fifty years old.Walking alone to a laboratory in the Institute of Physics.He is the principal of the school, the famous physicist Professor Roentgen.Recently, he has been experimenting with a modified cathode ray tube.Because he has a lot of administrative work and teaching tasks during the day.I had to put my scientific experiments at night.

Roentgen arrived at the laboratory and carefully wrapped a pear-shaped vacuum discharge tube tightly with black paper to prevent any visible light from leaking through the tube.Then he stood up, closed all the doors and windows, drew the curtains, switched on the power, and bent down to check whether the black paper leaked light.

Suddenly, he discovered a peculiar phenomenon: a green fluorescent light shot out on the small workbench less than [-] meter away from the discharge tube!

"Where does this light come from?" thought Roentgen.He looked around strangely, but found nothing.So he cut off the power.The photocell went out, and the green light was gone.Then, he tried several times in a row, as soon as the power was turned on and the photoelectric tube was lit, a green light appeared.

So he struck a match to see what was on the little workbench.It turned out that there was a piece of cardboard covered with a layer of barium platinous cyanide crystal material, and the mysterious light was emitted from it!
"But why does this piece of cardboard glow?" Roentgen asked himself, "Could it be that there is some unknown ray in the photocell that hit the cardboard and caused it to glow?" Thinking of this, he picked up a In this book, I put it between the photocell and the cardboard, trying to confirm my inference.What surprised him was that this light was not only emitted from the photocell, but even more strangely, the cardboard still glowed.He moved the cardboard a little further, still glowing.

"My God! This ray can penetrate solid matter!" Roentgen was ecstatic, unable to restrain the excitement in his heart, and forgot everything around him.He then used wood and hard rubber as obstacles, and after repeated experiments, he found that none of these objects could block the passage of this ray.Just like that, before I knew it, it was the next morning.

His wife found out that he hadn't come home all night, and sent for him to have breakfast.He answered with his mouth, but his hands were still doing experiments.After several urgings, he ate a little indiscriminately, and returned to the laboratory without saying a word.For several days, he locked himself in the laboratory and repeatedly experimented with various metals. As a result, except for copper and platinum, all others were penetrated by rays.

One day, he inadvertently put his hand between the photocell and the cardboard, and was stunned. He clearly saw the outline of each finger, and vaguely saw the shadow of the skeleton!
Later, Rontgen took his wife as an experimental subject and took the first photo of the hand under the mysterious ray.Roentgen didn't know what to call this kind of radiation, so he called it "X" rays.

Soon, Roentgen announced this ray to the world through his thesis "A New Ray".

This incident soon caused a sensation all over the world.People spread the news of this great discovery, and Roentgen became a news figure.But in addition to the many congratulators, there are also skeptics.What's more, they strongly condemned this. They believed that it was a desecration of the sacred human body.

Roentgen dismissed this, and in January of the following year, he held a report in his research institute and gave a live performance.In the report, Roentgen talked excitedly: The discovery of "X" rays will have a great impact on physics and human medicine.

"X" rays have finally been accepted by people and applied to many fields.In recognition of Roentgen's outstanding contribution, the Nobel Prize Foundation decided to award him the physics prize for the first year.

Wisdom Interpretation:

Persistence is the most important thing in success. To achieve success, one must persevere in hard work. Many people's success is obtained after many failures. We often say that "failure is the mother of success." Success is indeed the reward of failure, but It is also a reward for those who can persist.

Scientific research is the interpretation of "those who love fishing will always catch fish".A scientist does not know what he will get in the end during the research process, but the goddess of luck often favors those who keep trying, just like the old Chinese saying "Heaven rewards hard work".

(End of this chapter)