Wilhelm Röntgen

On 8 November 1895, working with a covered discharge tube at the Würzburg Physical Institute, Röntgen noticed a fluorescent screen glowing some distance away. After weeks of further experiments he submitted 'On a New Kind of Rays' to the Würzburg Physical-Medical Society at the end of December 1895, calling the new radiation 'X-rays'.

In three short communications between 1895 and 1897 he described how the rays passed through matter roughly according to its density, darkened photographic plates, travelled in straight lines, were not deflected by a magnet and could discharge electrified bodies. He also reported the tests that failed, such as his search for refraction and interference.

In 1901 he received the first Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the rays. He gave the prize money to the University of Würzburg for the support of science.

Röntgen told almost no one about his observation for about seven weeks. According to his biographer Otto Glasser, when his friend Theodor Boveri pressed him, he said he had found something interesting but did not know whether his observations were correct. In his first paper he wrote that, wherever possible, he had checked every important observation made by eye against a photographic plate.

Holding back a striking result until he had checked it from several directions is consistent with the profile's high analytical rigor score. Most of the personal detail comes from an admiring biographer, but Röntgen's own paper describes the same habit of checking. Analytical Rigour

In 1896 Max Levy, an engineer at the electrical firm AEG, approached Röntgen about the company's interest in developing the rays. As quoted by Glasser, Röntgen replied that university discoveries belonged to humanity and should not be hampered by patents, licences or contracts. The Würzburg Röntgen memorial also records that he declined to patent the process.

Turning down control over a valuable discovery offers one example of the moderate impact motivation in this profile. His later gift of the Nobel prize money to Würzburg sits alongside it, although he left medical applications of the rays to others. Impact Motivation

By 1894-95 Röntgen, then close to fifty, was an established physicist known for precise measurements on gases, crystals and liquids. He obtained a Lenard tube, repeated Lenard's cathode-ray experiments and set aside his studies of liquids under pressure to work on cathode rays. The historian Alexi Assmus notes that this was outside his usual research.

Moving into an unfamiliar line of work in mid-career is consistent with the profile's curiosity score. The discovery itself also involved chance, and this choice is one reasonable reading of how he came to be in a position to notice it. Curiosity