INTRODUCTION
THE DISCOVERY BY WILHELM CONRAD RONTGEN OF X-RAYS IN LATE 1895 was the most globally astonishing scientific event prior to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. * Some 50 books and pamphlets and 1,000 papers on X-rays were published in 1896 alone, remarkable testimony to the impact of these penetrating rays. (1)
By contrast, Henri Becquerel, who discovered radioactivity just a few months later, wrote seven papers on the subject in 1896, only two ...