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The Discovery of X-Rays in 1895 by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen
On November 8, 1895, at the University of Wurzburg, Roentgen was working in the lab when he noticed a strange fluorescence coming from a nearby table. Upon further observation he found that it originated from a partially evacuated Hittof-Crookes tube, covered in opaque black paper which he was using to study cathode rays. He concluded that the fluorescence, which penetrated the opaque black paper, must have been caused by rays. This phenomenon was later coined x-rays. -
Antoine Henri Becquerel (1852-1908)
Received the Noble Prize in physics for being the first to discover radioactivity as a phenomenon separate from that of x-rays and document the differences between the two. -
Pierre and Maria Curie
Using a device invented by her husband and his brother, that measured extremely low electrical currents, Curie was able to note that uranium electrified the air around it. Further investigation showed that the activity of uranium compounds depended upon the amount of uranium present and that radioactivity was not a result of the interactions between molecules, but rather came from the atom itself. Using Pitchblende and chalcolite Curie found that Thorium was radioactive as well.
