Sir Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield (/ˈhaʊnzfiːld/ HOWNZ-feeld; 28 August 1919 – 12 August 2004)[2][3][4][5][6] was a British electrical engineer who shared the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Allan MacLeod Cormack for his part in developing the diagnostic technique of X-ray computed tomography (CT).

[7][8][9][10][11] His name is immortalised in the Hounsfield scale, a quantitative measure of radiodensity used in evaluating CT scans.

Between the ages of eleven and eighteen, he tinkered with his own electrical recording machines, launched himself off haystacks with his own home-made glider, and almost killed himself by using water-filled tar barrels and acetylene to see how high they could be waterjet propelled.

[14] Shortly before World War II, he joined the Royal Air Force as a volunteer reservist where he learned the basics of electronics and radar.

[citation needed] In 1949, Hounsfield began work at EMI, Ltd. in Hayes, Middlesex, where he researched guided weapon systems and radar.

He continued to improve CT scanning, introducing a whole-body scanner in 1975, and was senior researcher (and after his retirement in 1984, consultant) to the laboratories.

While on an outing in the country, Hounsfield came up with the idea that one could determine what was inside a box by taking X-ray readings at all angles around the object.

He then set to work constructing a computer that could take input from X-rays at various angles to create an image of the object in "slices".