History of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and MRI Safety

A set of vocabulary flashcards detailing key historical figures, discoveries, and milestones in the development of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).

Lodestone

A naturally magnetized piece of mineral magnetite that attracts iron, through which the properties of magnetism were first discovered in ancient times.

Amber

The Greek word from which 'electron' is derived, discovered through early uses of compasses.

William Gilbert

Known as the Father of Electricity and Magnetism, he created the science of magnetism in the 1600s and discovered that the Earth is a magnet.

Fourier Transform

A mathematical tool developed by Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier in the 1700s that allows one to view signals, frequencies, and waveforms in different domains.

Oersted Experiment

An 1820 experiment by Hans Christian Oersted that proved electricity produces magnetism by deflecting a compass needle using an electric current.

Faraday's Law of Induction

An 1831 basic law predicting how a magnetic field interacts with electricity, stating that if two of motion, magnetism, or charge are present, the third is automatically induced.

Sir James Clerk Maxwell

Physicist who proved in 1865 that magnetic and electrical fields coexist at $90^\times$ from each other and made the connection between light and electromagnetic waves.

Heinrich Hertz

Scientist who proved the existence of electromagnetic waves in 1887 and built an apparatus to transmit and receive them, laying the groundwork for radiofrequencies (RF) in MRI.

War of the Currents

An 1880s era of competition between Nikola Tesla, who developed alternating current (AC), and Thomas Edison, who developed direct current (DC).

Tesla

The unit of measurement used for static magnetic field strength, named after Nikola Tesla.

Wilhelm Konrad Roentgen

The Father of Radiology who discovered high-frequency electromagnetic X-rays on November 8, 1895.

Clarence Madison Dally

Assistant to Thomas Edison who became the first documented case of radiation poisoning, leading to his death in 1904.

Bloch and Purcell

Felix Bloch and Edward Purcell, who discovered in 1946 that substances bombarded with RF excite atoms that emit their own frequency, leading to the identification of $T_1$ and $T_2$ relaxation rates.

Sir Peter Mansfield

MRI pioneer who imaged his own finger in 1973 for the first NMR image, developed slice selection, gradient echoes, and echo planar imaging, and won the Nobel Prize in 2003.

Paul Lauterbur, Ph.D.

Scientist who created the use of $G_x$, $G_y$, and $G_z$ gradients in 1973 to isolate and locate protons in a magnetic field.

Indomitable

The first whole-body MRI machine created by Raymond Damadian, M.D. in 1977, which took $5\,\text{hours}$ to produce a single image.

Raymond Damadian, M.D.

Creator of the first whole-body MRI machine named Indomitable in 1977, who famously protested his exclusion from the 2003 Nobel Prize in Science.

Modern computers and digital imaging require the use of mathematical equation known as the

Fourier Transform

What mineral was discovered to be a naturally occurring magnet

Lodestone

T1 and T2 relaxation are arbitrary terms coined by which scientsist?

Bloch and Purcell

Why did Edison abandon his research in ionizing Radiation?

Assistant died from radiation poisoning

Who built the first whole body MRI machine?

Damadian

Static Magnetic field strength is defined in units named after this prominent scientist:

Tesla

Sir James Clark Maxwells’s work showed that a magnetic field co-exists __ degrees from an electric field.

90

The theory that if two are present (motion, magnetism, or charge), then the third can be induced is attributted to ___

Faraday

out of the entire “History” PowerPoint, who is mostly attributed (Nobel Prize Winners) in our ability to produce MRI scans today?

Lauterbur and Mansfield

What is MRI generally classified near on the electromagnetic spectrum?

Microwave