Today Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a widely used medical tool, mentioned in news reports any time a high-profile athlete grabs their elbow or twists a knee. But the development of MRI was far from straightforward.

The roots of MRI lie in the discovery of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) by I.I. Rabi in 1938, and the growing use of NMR by analytical chemists after Varian introduced a commercially available NMR spectrometer in 1961. MRI’s development as a medical technique also involved two test tubes of clear water, a baby clam, and a bitter public fight about the Nobel Prize. Along the way, we’ll explore two jewels of the Science History Institute’s collections: a Varian A-60 equipped with an “Emotional Crisis Detector” and the actual coconut Paul Lauterbur used to make the first three-dimensional MRI scan.

This presentation was our annual Ralph Connor Memorial Lecture, which was created by the Science History Institute to showcase periodic addresses on the role of research in the development of technology and industry by eminent practitioners in the chemical and molecular sciences.

Learn more about our Joseph Priestley Society programming at sciencehistory.org/jps

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