Allan MacLeod Cormack
Allan MacLeod Cormack | |
---|---|
Born | February 23, 1924 |
Died | May 7, 1998 | (aged 74)
Alma mater | Rondebosch Boys' High School University of Cape Town St John's College, Cambridge |
Known for | Computed tomography |
Awards | Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1979) National Medal of Science (1990) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Physics |
Allan MacLeod Cormack (February 23, 1924 – May 7, 1998) was a South African American physicist who won the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (along with Godfrey Hounsfield) for his work on X-ray computed tomography (CT), a significant and unusual achievement since Cormack did not hold a doctoral degree in any scientific field.[1][2]
Early life and education
[edit]Cormack was born on February 23, 1924, in Johannesburg, South Africa. He attended Rondebosch Boys' High School in Cape Town, where he was active in the debating and tennis teams.[3] He received his B.Sc. in physics in 1944 from the University of Cape Town and his M.Sc. in crystallography in 1945 from the same institution. He was a doctoral student at Cambridge University from 1947 to 1949, and while at Cambridge he met his future wife, Barbara Seavey, an American physics student.[citation needed]
Career
[edit]After marrying Barbara, he returned to the University of Cape Town in early 1950 to lecture. Following a sabbatical at Harvard in 1956–57, the couple agreed to move to the United States, and Cormack became a professor at Tufts University in the fall of 1957. Cormack became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1966. Although he was mainly working on particle physics, Cormack's side interest in x-ray technology led him to develop the theoretical underpinnings of CT scanning. This work was initiated at the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital in early 1956 and continued briefly in mid-1957 after returning from his sabbatical. His results were subsequently published in two papers in the Journal of Applied Physics in 1963 and 1964. These papers generated little interest until Hounsfield and colleagues built the first CT scanner in 1971, taking Cormack's theoretical calculations into a real application. For their independent efforts, Cormack and Hounsfield shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. It is notable that the two built a very similar type of device without collaboration in different parts of the world [3]. He was member of the International Academy of Science, Munich. In 1990, he was awarded the National Medal of Science.[4]
Death
[edit]Cormack died of cancer in Winchester, Massachusetts, at age 74. He was posthumously awarded the Order of Mapungubwe on December 10, 2002, for outstanding achievements as a scientist and for co-inventing the CT scanner.[citation needed]
References
[edit]- ^ "1979: Allan MacLeod Cormack (1924–1998)". St John's College, Cambridge.
- ^ Oransky, Ivan (September 2004). "Sir Godfrey N Hounsfield". The Lancet. 364 (9439): 1032. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(04)17049-9. PMID 15455486. S2CID 9630780.
- ^ Allan M. Cormack on Nobelprize.org , accessed 11 October 2020
- ^ "The President's National Medal of Science: Recipient Details | NSF – National Science Foundation". www.nsf.gov. Retrieved November 14, 2017.
External links
[edit]Quotations related to Allan MacLeod Cormack at Wikiquote
- Allan M. Cormack on Nobelprize.org
- 1924 births
- 1998 deaths
- Alumni of Rondebosch Boys' High School
- Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge
- American biophysicists
- American Nobel laureates
- Deaths from cancer in Massachusetts
- Harvard University faculty
- National Medal of Science laureates
- Naturalized citizens of the United States
- Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine
- Scientists from Johannesburg
- People from Winchester, Massachusetts
- South African emigrants to the United States
- South African inventors
- South African Nobel laureates
- 20th-century South African physicists
- Tufts University faculty
- Academic staff of the University of Cape Town
- University of Cape Town alumni
- X-ray computed tomography
- South African people of Scottish descent
- Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
- Fellows of the American Physical Society
- Members of the National Academy of Medicine