Wilhelm Röntgen

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (/ˈrɛntɡən, ˈrʌnt-/ RENT-guhn, RUHNT-; German: [ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈʁœntɡən] ^ⓘ; 27 March 1845 – 10 February 1923), sometimes transliterated as Roentgen, was a German experimental physicist who produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range known as X-rays. For this discovery, he became the first recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901.

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was born on 27 March 1845 in Lennep (now part of Remscheid), Prussia, the only child of Friedrich Conrad Röntgen, a merchant and cloth manufacturer, and Charlotte Constanze Frowein. In 1848, he moved with his parents to the Netherlands, where his mother's family lived, rendering him stateless.

In 1862, Röntgen enrolled at Utrecht Technical School, where he followed courses for almost two years. In 1865, he was unfairly expelled from the Technical School when he was falsely accused of drawing a caricature of one of the teachers, which was actually drawn by someone else.

Without a high school diploma, Röntgen could only attend university in the Netherlands as a visitor. In 1865, he tried to attend Utrecht University without having the necessary credentials required for a regular student. He then moved to Switzerland and passed the entrance examination of the Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich (now ETH Zurich), where he became a mechanical engineering student of Gustav Zeuner. In 1869, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Zurich.

In 1874, Röntgen became a lecturer at the University of Strassburg. The following year, he became a professor at the Academy of Agriculture in Hohenheim. In 1876, he returned to Strassburg as Professor of Physics, and in 1879 was appointed to the Chair of Physics at the University of Giessen. In 1888, he reacquired German citizenship (after being stateless for 40 years) and obtained the Physics Chair at the University of Würzburg, and in 1900 at the University of Munich, by special request of the Bavarian government.

Röntgen had family in Iowa in the United States and planned to emigrate. He accepted an appointment at Columbia University in New York City and bought transatlantic tickets. However, the outbreak of World War I changed his plans, and he remained in Munich for the rest of his career.

With the inflation following World War I, Röntgen fell into bankruptcy, spending his final years at his country home in Weilheim.

Röntgen died of colorectal cancer on 10 February 1923 in Munich at the age of 77. In keeping with his will, his personal and scientific correspondence, with few exceptions, were destroyed upon his death.