Cormack, Allan MacLeod [key], 1924–98, American physicist, b. Johannesburg, South Africa. After studying at the Univ. of Cape Town (B.S. physics, 1944, M.S. crystallography, 1945), Cambridge, and Harvard, Cormack became a professor at Tufts Univ. in 1958. His interest in X-ray technology led him to develop the theoretical foundations that made computerized axial tomography (CAT) scanning possible. He published his results in two papers in 1963–64, but these generated little interest until the first CAT scan machine, built under the leadership of Godfrey Hounsfield, was introduced in 1972. For their independent efforts, Cormack and Hounsfield shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
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