X-ray picture of a hand with ring

This is one of the oldest x-ray pictures from the Netherlands. It was made by physics professor Hermanus Haga, some months after Wilhelm Röntgen discovered his ‘new, unknown kind of radiation’ .The picture shows the hand of his brother Jan, the hand bones and a ring clearly visible.

Haga had read Röntgen’s article in the winter of 1895 and immediately grasped the importance of the discovery. Until then, he had focused his research on studying the geomagnetic field. Now, Haga threw himself into unravelling this new phenomenon.

His brand new laboratory at the Westersingel was extremely suitable for this kind of work. Because of Haga’s earlier research, it had been built almost completely iron- and vibration-free. Now, it allowed Haga to do extremely precise calculations and make extraordinary sharp pictures.

In 1899, Haga made history when he passed radiation through a narrow crack and took pictures that showed a ‘striped pattern’. This allowed Haga to not only infer the radiation’s wave characteristics, but also its wavelength.

The results were spectacular, but sadly enough, it didn’t bring Haga the fame he deserved. The scientific community – not having a laboratory like his at their disposal - were unable to replicate his results and blamed the effect on sloppy development of the pictures.