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Hitchcock LECTURE SERIES

Why Did It Take So Long? The Nature and Origins of Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Paul C. Lauterbur, Professor of Chemistry, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

November 06, 1991

About Paul C. Lauterbur

Paul C. Lauterbur was an American chemist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2003 with Peter Mansfield for his work which allowed the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to bepossible. Lauterbur is credited for his idea of introducing gradients in the magnetic field which allows for determining the origin of the radio waves emitted from the nuclei of the object of study. This spatial information allows two-dimensional pictures to be produced.