In 1895, physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen made a unique finding that electrified both the scientific world and the general public. He unintentionally discovered the existence of a mysterious ray that could penetrate various materials. He named the unknown ray the "x ray," and it would rapidly revolutionize both physics and medicine.

Röntgen was born in Lennep, Germany, the only child of a cloth manufacturer and merchant. Three years later his family moved to the Netherlands, where Röntgen attended the Utrecht Technical School, which he was expelled unfairly from after being accused of a prank another student had committed. Although Röntgen did not appear to be especially gifted in his schoolwork, he was good at tinkering with and building mechanical objects, a talent that would serve him well later in life as he would build many of his own experimental devices. In...