The Unknown Factor
HE historic figure featured in the '" March 27 episode of the ZB weekly programme This Was the Week, is Wilhelm Konrad von Rontgen. Rontgen, the German physicist who discovered X-rays, or Rontgen. rays, as other scientists at first called them, was born on March 26, 1845. In 1901 he received the Nobel Prize for physics, but it is the enigmatic X-rays which really secured for him a place in history. In this programme, which will be heard from the four ZB stations at 8.30 p.m., it is the life of the man himself which is of primary consideration. One of the outstanding facts is that Rontgen, although (or because) he was a great scientist, was also a humble man, So surely did he realise his own limitations that he could only suggest X, the traditional;symbol of the unknown quantity, -as the designation for his rays, expressing in that single term his recognition of the mystery that still surrounded the field of knowledge he had accidentally touched on. For his discovery was, like so many others, a matter of chance. At a time when he was working on another experiment he noticed peculiar reactions in a4 piece of apparatus lying close by, and began research on this new subject.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 663, 21 March 1952, Page 21
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211The Unknown Factor New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 663, 21 March 1952, Page 21
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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