followed the retirement of Josef Loschmidt. Loschmidt had been a junior colleague and good friend to Exner's father. Himself a brilliant scientist-mathematician he had looked after the interests of the younger Franz Exner and his four elder siblings following the early deaths of their father and mother in 1853 and 1859, becoming something of a mentor to the younger Franz. Franz Exner was a gregarious man, regularly holding informal dinners for university colleagues at his home At the start of 1896, at one of these gatherings, he showed some them a copy of "Ueber eine neue Art von Strahlen" (loosely, "On a new kind of [radioactive] ray") a brief learned article which he had received form the author, his friend since their time together in Zürich, Wilhelm Röntgen. Röntgen, unlike his friend, was an exceptionally shy and self-contained scholar, but on New Year's Day 1896 he had, uncharacteristically, made a trip to the post office at Würzburg (the city where he lived and worked) with no fewer than 90 envelopes. Each was addressed to a different European physicist. In twelve of the envelopes - including the one addressed to Exner - there were some "X-ray" copies. Exner's copy arrived on 6 January 1896: it was one of those accompanied by several copies of the first "X-rays". One of the colleagues to whom Exner showed his fiend's work was Ernst Lecher, established already as a talented experimental physicist, and a scholar-scientist for whose future career Röntgen's discoveries would prove pivotal. Lecher was also a son to Zacharias Konrad Lecher (1829–1905), the publisher and at this time editor in chief of the "Neue Freie Presse", one of Vienna's a leading mass-circulation newspapers. After the little meeting, Exner left the book and the "X-ray" copies with Lechner, and news of Röntgen's invention very quickly found its way into the public consciousness across and beyond Europe through the Vienna press. Exner also took his turn in university administration He served as Philosophy Dean of Faculty during 1903/04, and served as a member of the University Senate during 1907/08. By the time he served, during 1908/09, as rector of the University of Vienna, he was at the pinnacle of his scientific achievements. The university Chemical physics Institute in the Türkenstraße remained the focus of Exner's professional career through most of the most productive years of his career. The premises were nevertheless something of an embarrassment,