Electronics Weekly’s issue of November 29th 1972 reports the presentation of the MacRobert Award, described as the ‘Nobel Prize of Engineering’ to Godfrey Hounsfield of EMI for inventing the X-ray scanner.
"It enables 100 times more information to be extracted from the X-ray photons than with conventional methods and so is able to detect minute variations in the density of the brain which it has been difficult, if not impossible to detect before, such as early growth of tumours or internal bleeding,” said the EW report.
The award, consisting of a cheque for £25,000 and a gold medal was presented to Hounsfield by the Duke of Edinburgh.
Seven years later, Hounsfield won the actual Nobel Prize, taking the 1979 Nobel Prize for Medicine “for the development of computer assisted tomography.”
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Comments (1)
I worked as a test engineer in Hayes on the EMI brain scanner.
I remember Sir Godfrey Hounsfield as slightly ecentric. The rumour was he lived in a bedsit and use to run around in a very old Rover car.
He also invented his own circuit symbols. We were given a reference sheet so we could interpret the circuits. He also use to start work quite late after 12 but then he would work right into the night. I believe it took him about 8 years to develop the scanner. It was very succesful for a few years then got overtaken by the USA and Japan.
Posted by Maurice Dowling | January 17, 2008 3:39 PM
Posted on January 17, 2008 15:39