Who discovered gamma radiation in 1900?

Paul Villard discovered gamma radiation in 1900.

Villard was a French chemist and physicist studying the radiation emitted by radium. He found a highly penetrating component that could pass through materials that blocked alpha radiation and was not deflected by a magnetic field in the same way as beta radiation.

Villard reported the discovery but did not give the radiation its modern name. Ernest Rutherford later classified it as a third type of radioactive emission and called it “gamma radiation” in 1903, following the names alpha and beta. The Greek-letter sequence reflected the increasing penetrating power of the emissions.

A common mix-up is crediting Rutherford because he named gamma rays and helped establish their place in radiation science. Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity in uranium, while Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays. Villard’s contribution was identifying the especially penetrating radiation now understood as high-energy electromagnetic radiation produced by atomic nuclei.