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Peter Mansfield

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Scientist

The Resume

    (October 9, 1933-February 8, 2017)
    Born in London, United Kingdom
    Physicist
    Professor at Nottingham University (1964-94)
    Pioneer in developing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
    Built the first whole-body MRI machine (1978)
    Knighted (1993)
    With fellow MRI pioneer Paul Lauterbur, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2003)

Why he might be annoying:

    He dropped out of high school at fifteen after a guidance counselor told him his goal of being a scientist was unrealistic.
    He developed a long-running feud with the head of his department, Raymond Andrew, after Andrew delayed sending Mansfield’s request for a government grant to fund construction of a full-body MRI scanner for several months until after finding if his own grant application for building a mid-sized scanner had been approved.
    The technique he helped develop was originally known as nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, but when it was adapted for medical use, the word ‘nuclear’ was dropped so patients would not mistakenly think they were being exposed to radiation.

Why he might not be annoying:

    After two years of mandatory military service, he began taking night classes, passed the entrance exam for Queen Mary College, and went on to earn a doctorate in physics.
    He was married to Jean Kibble for 54 years.
    He volunteered to be the first person enclosed and scanned in an MRI machine, despite concerns that the nonuniform magnetic field used in the machine could induce cardiac fibrillation. (Although he was convinced from his own calculations that there was no danger.)
    He developed an improved scanning technique, echo-planar imaging, that reduced the time for producing images from nearly an hour to under a second.
    MRI revolutionized medicine by making it possible to see what is going on inside a human body without cutting it open or exposing it to the radiation dangers of x-rays.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 7 Votes: 85.71% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 13 Votes: 53.85% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 64 Votes: 51.56% Annoying