Health & biology · 1971

CT scanning

A computer combined thousands of X-ray angles into cross-section images of the brain.

Godfrey Hounsfield at EMI scanned the first patient in London in 1971, based on mathematics by Allan Cormack. CT made internal anatomy visible without surgery and is now used for hundreds of millions of scans a year.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 2

Integrated circuit 1958
X-rays 1895

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Life expectancy in the UK since 1543 Latest: 81.3 years (2023) Source: Our World in Data