Godfrey Hounsfield

Sir Godfrey Hounsfield
Born
Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield

28 August 1919
Died12 August 2004(2004-08-12) (aged 84)
NationalityEnglish
Known for
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsElectrical engineer

Sir Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield (/ˈhnzfld/ HOWNZ-feeld; 28 August 1919 – 12 August 2004) 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).

His name is immortalised in the Hounsfield scale, a quantitative measure of radiodensity used in evaluating CT scans. The scale is defined in Hounsfield units (symbol HU), running from air at −1000 HU, through water at 0 HU, and up to dense cortical bone at +1000 HU and more.