Modern Diagnostic X-Ray Sources, 2nd Edition

Chapter 1

Historical introduction and survey

Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, posing with one of his early tubes in January 1897 for a statue in his honor, to be erected in Berlin, Germany. (Courtesy of German Roentgen Museum, Remscheid-Lennep, Germany.)

In January 1897, summarizing an intense year of ups and downs, Professor Dr. Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen confessed to his dear friend Ludwig Zehnder: “Meanwhile, I have provisionally sworn that I do not want to deal with the behavior of the [X-ray] tubes, as these dingus are … capricious and erratic …” (see Zehnder, 1935, p. 66, translated). After the following, readers may dare to disagree. ...