Allan MacLeod Cormack (1924 - 1998)

Born 23 Feb 1924 in Johannesburg, Transvaal, South Africa

Died 7 May 1998 at age 74 in Massachusetts, America

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Biography

Allan MacLeod Cormack is Notable.

Allan MacLeod Cormack is genealogies verbind aan Suid Afrika /is genealogically connected to South Africa

ALLAN M. CORMACK, PHYSIOLOGY OR MEDICINE, 1979

Dr Allan Cormack won his award for the integral role he played in the development of CT scanning technology. He studied at Harvard and spent most of his time between SA and the USA. In the 1950s, the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital^[1] were the first places these scans were ever trialed.

Allan MacLeod Cormack, (born Feb. 23, 1924, Johannesburg, S.Af.—died May 7, 1998, Winchester, Mass., U.S.), South African-born American physicist who, with Godfrey Hounsfield, was awarded the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work in developing the powerful new diagnostic technique of computerized axial tomography (CAT). Cormack was unusual in the field of Nobel laureates because he never earned a doctorate degree in medicine or any other field of science.

After graduating from the University of Cape Town in 1944 Cormack pursued advanced studies there and at the University of Cambridge. He was a lecturer at Cape Town from 1950 to 1956 and then, after a year’s research fellowship at Harvard University, became assistant professor of physics at Tufts University. His main research at Tufts centred on the interaction of subatomic particles. He advanced to full professor in 1964, was chairman of the department from 1968 to 1976, and retired in 1980. He became a U.S. citizen in 1966.

Michael Faraday (L) English physicist and chemist (electromagnetism) and John Frederic Daniell (R) British chemist and meteorologist who invented the Daniell cell.

A part-time position as physicist for a hospital radiology department first aroused Cormack’s interest in the problem of X-ray imaging of soft tissues or layers of tissue of differing densities. The two-dimensional representations of conventional X-ray plates were often unable to distinguish between such tissues. More information could be gained if X rays of the body were taken from several different directions, but conventional X-ray techniques made this procedure problematic. In the early 1960s Cormack showed how details of a flat section of soft tissues could be calculated from measurements of the attenuation of X rays passing through it from many different angles. He thus provided the mathematical technique for the CAT scan, in which an X-ray source and electronic detectors are rotated about the body and the resulting data is analyzed by a computer to produce a sharp map of the tissues within a cross section of the body. Cormack became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1980. ^[2]

Nobel Prize

Who Invented the CT Scan?

The first commercially available CT scanner was created by British engineer Godfrey Hounsfield of EMI Laboratories in 1972. He co-invented the technology with physicist Dr. Allan Cormack. Both researchers were later on jointly awarded the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. By 1981, Hounsfield was knighted and became Sir Godfrey Hounsfield. ^[3]

WORLDKINGS Africa Records Institute (AFRI) – Allan MacLeod...

Sources

• Wikipedia Allan MacLeod Cormack 1924 – 1998 Seen and entered May15, 2023 by Susanna Hendrina Elisa de Bruyn
• Alchetron Allan MacLeod Cormack Seen and entered May16, 2023 by Susanna Hendrina Elisa de Bruyn
• Evolution of CT Scan [1] Seen and entered May16, 2023 by Susanna Hendrina Elisa de Bruyn

1. ↑ Page name: Groote Schuur Hospital, Author: Wikipedia contributors, Publisher: Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Date of last revision: 5 March 2023 02:55 UTC, Date retrieved: 16 May 2023 12:40 UTC Groote Schuur Hospital Seen and entered May 16, 2023, by Susanna Hendrina Elisa de Bruyn
2. ↑ Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Allan MacLeod Cormack". Encyclopedia Britannica, 3 May. 2023, Allan MacLeod Cormack. Accessed 16 May 2023. Seen and entered April 23, 2023 by Susanna Hendrina Elisa de Bruyn
3. ↑ Catalina Imaging Who Invented the CT Scan Seen and entered April 23, 2023 by Susanna Hendrina Elisa de Bruyn
4. ↑ Indochinakings, Home World Records Institute Africa Records Institute WORLDKINGS – Worldkings News – Africa Records Institute (AFRI) – Allan MacLeod... Allan MacLeod Cormack: Physician invents world’s first theory of X-ray computed tomography Seen and entered May16, 2023 by Susanna Hendrina Elisa de Bruyn