Wilhelm Röntgen

German mechanical engineer and physicist, who, on 8 November 1895, produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range known as X-rays or Röntgen rays, an achievement that earned him the inaugural Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901.

A professor of physics and Director of the Physical Institute at Wurzburg, he was a meticulous experimentalist who preferred to work alone. On that day in 1895 while experimenting with a Crookes tube, he found changes in crystals with new rays emitting. His further intensive study established the x-rays lines.

Röntgen was married to Anna Bertha Ludwig for 47 years until her death in 1919 at age 80. In 1866 they met in Zürich and got engaged in 1869 and wed in Apeldoorn, Netherlands on 7 July 1872; the delay was due to Anna being six years Wilhelm's senior and his father not approving of her age or humble background. They raised one child, Josephine Bertha Ludwig, whom they adopted at age 6 after her father, Anna's only brother, died in 1887.

Wilhelm Röntgen died on 10 February 1923 from carcinoma of the intestine, also known as colorectal cancer, in Munich, Germany. He was 77.