Main description:

A mild-mannered, pleasant but determined genius, Godfrey Hounsfield made a great breakthrough in medical imaging CT scans in 1972. His revolutionary method led to fast, pain-free, and accurate diagnosis of conditions of the human brain, and today helps to bring health benefits to people all over the world. Blood clots caused by strokes, falls, or motor accidents are diagnosed and treated before causing irreversible damage. Tumours are located and assessed without exploratory surgery. The man who pioneered this had no medical training. Godfrey Hounsfield left school with no qualifications, and he is one of the few Nobel laureates not to have learnt their skills at university. He was mostly self-taught and he thought in unusual ways, using pictures, analogies, and intuition. He was a peaceful man, but his wartime years in the RAF, during which he became a radar instructor, were a major turning point, and this boy from a farm went on to change the world. Godfrey Hounsfield believed strongly that science and engineering could improve life and health for ordinary people, and he wanted to pass on that enthusiasm to the next generation.