Cormack, Allan MacLeod (1924-1998), a South African-born American physicist, contributed to the development of the computerized tomographic (CT) scanner. The CT scanner is an X-ray machine that makes a cross-sectional view of a patient’s body. It shoots a pencil-thin beam of X rays through the body from many angles. Detectors measure the rays that pass through, and a computer converts the many views into a single, cross-sectional image. CT scanners enable doctors to see detailed pictures of various organs and tissues. Cormack shared the 1979 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine with the British engineer Sir Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield (see Hounsfield, Sir Godfrey ).
During his early studies at Cambridge University in England, Cormack researched helium-6 (an isotope of helium). He later studied the scattering (deflection) of neutrons at the Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory in the United States. He also investigated the interaction of subatomic particles. Cormack spent much of the 1970’s researching CT scanning.
Allan MacLeod Cormack was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He studied electrical engineering at the University of Cape Town and pursued advanced studies in England at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. He worked at the Groote Shuur hospital in Johannesburg as a medical physicist before going to the United States. In the United States, he taught and researched at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, where, in 1968, he became chairman of the physics department. He became an American citizen in 1966.
