# The CT Scanner turned 50 today

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ct-scanner-turned-50-today/951746>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [October 1, 2021, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ct-scanner-turned-50-today/951746 "2021-10-01T19:09:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![PozhanPop](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pozhanpop/32/8022_2.png) [@PozhanPop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PozhanPop)\
**Post date:** [October 1, 2021, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ct-scanner-turned-50-today/951746/1 "2021-10-01T19:09:41Z")

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I raise my glass to Sir Godfrey and Atkinson Harley Hospital for this invention that simply revolutionized diagnostic imaging.

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**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\
**Post date:** [October 1, 2021, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ct-scanner-turned-50-today/951746/2 "2021-10-01T19:17:25Z")

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Received the Nobel Prize for this.

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**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\
**Post date:** [October 1, 2021, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ct-scanner-turned-50-today/951746/3 "2021-10-01T23:23:42Z")

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There are a lot of other people who made important contributions before then:

> **[History of computed tomography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computed_tomography)**
>
> Pages for logged out editors learn more
> 
> The history of X-ray computed tomography dates back to at least 1917 with the mathematical theory of the Radon transform In October 1963, William H. Oldendorf received a U.S. patent for a "radiant energy apparatus for investigating selected areas of interior objects obscured by dense material". The first clinical CT scan was performed in 1971 using a scanner invented by Sir Godfrey Hounsfield.
> The mathematical theory behind computed tomographic r...

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**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2021, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ct-scanner-turned-50-today/951746/4 "2021-10-03T10:28:40Z")

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Cool history: Friday was the 50th anniversary of the first successful medical CT scan: “On 1 October 1971, CT scanning was introduced into medical practice with a successful scan on a cerebral cyst patient at Atkinson Morley Hospital in Wimbledon, London, United Kingdom.”

> **[Godfrey Hounsfield](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfrey_Hounsfield)**
>
> Pages for logged out editors learn more
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> 			 
> 
> Sir Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield CBE FRS (/ˈhaʊnzfiːld/ HOWNZ-feeld; 28 August 1919 – 12 August 2004) was an English electrical engineer who shared the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Allan MacLeod Cormack for his part in developing the diagnostic technique of X-ray computed tomography (CT).
> His name is immortalised in the Hounsfield scale, a quantitative measure of radiodensity used in evaluating CT scans. The scale is defined ...

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**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2021, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ct-scanner-turned-50-today/951746/5 "2021-10-03T12:52:08Z")

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I feel old. I remember that.

But happy birthday CT scanner. What a great improvement in medical imaging.