Can you see bone through flesh?

That time, that place

Passing current through evacuated tubes was a fashionable experiment. Many laboratories were running similar setups. Röntgen had no special apparatus.

Why this question

What he did was wrap the tube completely in heavy black paper, to block the light from inside and look for something else.

And a fluorescent screen on a bench meters away glowed faintly. The light was sealed in, and something was still getting through the paper.

What was found

He shut himself in the laboratory for six weeks, taking his meals there.

Whatever it was passed through wood, through rubber, through thin aluminum. Lead stopped it. And when he held his hand before the screen, the flesh came through faintly while the bones stood as sharp shadows.

Not knowing what it was, he borrowed mathematics' letter for an unknown and called them X-rays.

The photograph of his wife's hand is famous — finger bones and a ring together. Seeing it, she is said to have remarked that she had seen her own death.

He announced at the end of December, and within weeks hospitals around the world were using X-rays. He took out no patent, on the grounds that everyone should be able to use it.