[HN Gopher] An eccentric engineer at the Beatles' record company... ___________________________________________________________________ An eccentric engineer at the Beatles' record company invented the CT scan Author : giuliomagnifico Score : 121 points Date : 2021-10-02 17:11 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.fastcompany.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.fastcompany.com) | Arainach wrote: | This article title is rather poor: while the Beatles recorded | some records for EMI, they founded a record company (Apple | Records) and did much of their work under that label, so "the | Beatles' record company" would in context always refer to Apple, | not EMI. | cardiffspaceman wrote: | The focus of the article is to make it seem random that this | guy was working for a record company that distributed the | Beatles and yet he invented X-Ray CT scans. | | His biography on Wikipedia[1] which dovetails with the true | history of EMI, at one time a builder of computers and other | electronics, makes it more a matter of the inspiration from a | walk in the countryside coming into the mind of a well-prepared | engineer. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfrey_Hounsfield | freetinker wrote: | So a trained engineer who won the Nobel prize. What an | egregiously clickbait-y title. | WastingMyTime89 wrote: | He won the Nobel for the invention of the CT scan. The | clickbait-y part mostly concerns EMI. EMI is strange | company. It started as a merger between a gramophone | producer and a record company to create a vertically | integrated business in the 30s. Capitalising on their | expertise in sound production and broadcasting equipments | they became a very important producer of radar equipments | during the Second World War. And it's this expertise in | military radar technology which lead to the development of | the CT scan. Meanwhile the recording part of the company | merrily lived its own life and happened to produce the | Beatles. | tpmx wrote: | _He retired from EMI in 1986 and used the prize money from | his Nobel to build a personal laboratory in his home._ | | Loved that part. Imagine a $1M home lab! | w0mbat wrote: | I agree, describing EMI as "the Beatles record company" is true | but very misleading. | | EMI was a diverse conglomerate that was involved in all kinds | of stuff, from military RADAR systems to making TV cameras, | computers and blank cassette tapes. Yes, EMI had a record | company division (also famous for firing The Sex Pistols), but | EMI was exactly the kind of huge industrial tech company you | would expect to invent a new kind of scanner. | mohn wrote: | > Hounsfield pondered whether it was possible to detect hidden | areas in Egyptian pyramids by capturing cosmic rays that passed | through unseen voids. | | I also wondered about this possibility a few years ago and when I | searched online, I found an example of muon tomography of the | volcanic dome of La Soufriere on the island of Guadeloupe[1]. | Cool non-seismic approach to a difficult imaging problem. | | Specifically, I was wondering about neutrino tomography of the | entire earth, but the low probability of neutrino collisions | would seem to make that infeasible. | | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPYhqJ3e-2o | [deleted] | 1-6 wrote: | He basically went from EMI to EMF. | ThePadawan wrote: | Unbelievable. | redwall_hp wrote: | > Finally, in possibly his most ingenious invention, Hounsfield | created an algorithm to reconstruct an image of the brain based | on all these layers. By working backward and using one of the | era's fastest new computers, he could calculate the value for | each little box of each brain layer. Eureka! | | And, of course, they glossed over the most interesting part by | simply saying "an algorithm." I know that modern CT scans use | Marching Cubes [1], which is what that particular algorithm was | developed for, but that came later in the 80s. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marching_cubes | habi wrote: | I don't think they glossed over the marching cubes algorithm, | but more over the theoretical work of Allan Cormack [0], which | is crucial for CT reconstruction. | | (I work with (benchtop) microCT machines) | | [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_MacLeod_Cormack | dreamcompiler wrote: | Marching Cubes is only the visualization mechanism after you | have the voxels. The real work is in reconstructing the 3D data | [voxels] from 1D scans, and that typically uses the Radon | transform: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radon_transform | AnimalMuppet wrote: | Don't they really use Feldkamp-Davis-Kress cone-beam | algorithm? (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15305448/) | | Because the x-ray sources are point sources, or close, so you | get a cone beam. | geoduck14 wrote: | I was taught in school that the algorithm was an inverted 3d | Fourier Transform. I'm not sure if I believe that now. | dreamcompiler wrote: | Sort of. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radon_transform#Relationship_w. | .. | mastrsushi wrote: | Cus I'm the CT scan!! | | Cus I'm the CT scan yeah!! | [deleted] | [deleted] | coldtea wrote: | He wasn't the only "eccentric engineer" associated with the | Beatles and Apple: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Alex | lelandfe wrote: | I thought the "nothing box" that he invented was an apt self- | description. | | Wound up finding an old advert for it: | http://lennonsunroom.blogspot.com/2010/04/nothing-box.html | ttoinou wrote: | I'm more impressed by how you would align the X rays slices to | correct translation / shifts, seems like a bigger problem to me | than reconstructing the data from aligned scans | car wrote: | The fundamental invention of tomography was by by William | Oldendorf who inspired Hounsfield. | | He used a record turntable and a toy train to prototype his early | ideas. | | His egregious exclusion from the Nobel prize was deemed a | political decision by the Europeans committee due to ongoing | patent matters. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Oldendorf#Role_in_d... | ludwigvan wrote: | Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the first CT scan! | | https://twitter.com/ARRS_Radiology/status/144391762570111388... | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_R47LDdlZM | decker wrote: | It's unfortunate that he went back to work instead of quitting | and filing patents on the device. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-10-02 23:00 UTC)