Imagining the Elephant

The following sections are included:

• Contents

• Foreword

• Preface

• Acknowledgments

Allan Cormack's forebears all came from Caithness, the northernmost extent of the Scottish mainland (Figure 1.1). Edging a rugged treeless landscape, the Caithness coastline consists of sheer cliffs interspersed with beautiful beaches and two harbours – Wick and Thurso – at the mouths of the principal rivers. Wick, which takes its name from the first three letters of ‘Viking’, was the birthplace of Cormack's parents, George Cormack and Amelia MacLeod. The area has a rich history, stretching back over five thousand years, and it held a particular fascination for Allan.…

Fourteen-year-old Allan Cormack was privileged to have the love and support of his family, although it would not have been easy finding his way in the world without the presence of his father. He was fortunate to have been enrolled at Rondebosch Boys' High School (RBHS), a government school located near the slopes of Table Mountain (Figure 2.1). The school had the benefit of being served by a generation of fine teachers who made education their life's work. Many years after his return from Scotland to complete his schooling at RBHS, Allan recalled with affection the influence that these men had had on him…

It was almost eight centuries ago that a group of Oxford dons took exception to the hanging of two fellow scholars who had murdered a prostitute. They absconded to East Anglia, to the refuge of the Fens, where they founded a new seat of learning. The first Chancellor of Cambridge University was elected in 1225 and shortly thereafter, in 1233, he was recognised by the Pope, Gregory IX. Such recognition was not accorded Oxford University until 1254. “As so often”, it has been said, “Cambridge started after Oxford and finished first”.²…

Allan and Barbara spent the first few weeks of married life in the United Kingdom. Having accepted the lecturing post at the University of Cape Town (UCT), Allan bade St John's College, the Cavendish Laboratory and Cambridge University farewell, and in early February 1950 he and Barbara boarded a ship at Southampton. The two-week sea voyage to Cape Town, during which Allan celebrated his 26th birthday, was an ideal opportunity for them to relax and contemplate what lay ahead.…

Originally, when he first applied for furlough and study leave in July 1955, Allan had proposed spending a year at Cornell University in Ithaca, upstate New York, participating in their nuclear research programme.² However, since Barbara's family lived near Boston and she had studied physics at Radcliffe, the Cormacks decided that Harvard University would be a better choice for the sabbatical year. Barbara knew several of the faculty members in the physics department from coursework and advising in the mid-1940s. She recommended that Allan write to Norman Ramsey, which he did. Ramsey sent back a friendly reply, inviting Allan to work at the Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory.…

In the mid-1960s, prior to the widespread availability of photocopying machines and well before the advent of the internet, the standard practice for academics wanting a copy of a published article was to request a reprint from the author. The number of reprint requests, normally in the form of a simple post card, was a crude measure of the impact that the research had made on its field. For Allan's two papers in the Journal of Applied Physics he received a total of just three requests.…

In mid-November 1975 Allan came across a recent article by James Ambrose, entitled ‘A brief review of the EMI scanner’, which had just been published in the British Journal of Radiology. Ambrose provided a short introduction to Hounsfield's research on pattern recognition and then speculated that an assiduous search of the literature must have been made at the time. Ambrose thought that Hounsfield may or may not have been aware of the work of Oldendorf (1961), Cormack (1963), Cameron and Sorenson (1963), and Kuhl (1968).²…

As 1980 dawned, Allan experienced the trappings of a Nobel Prize: instant fame, invitations to speak and an honorary degree. Thirty years previously, after he had abandoned his studies at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge to marry Barbara and return to South Africa, he never imagined that the opportunity might present itself to earn a doctorate.…

Among the pleasures of academia is the opportunity to meet with old students. In addition to David Hennage, there were four other Tufts alumni who had a special relationship with Allan: Rick Hauck, Ross Humphreys, Bruce Bernstein and Matt Howard.…

The following sections are included:

• Appendix A Allan Cormack's Publications

• Appendix B Early Two-Dimensional Reconstruction and Recent Topics Stemming from It

• Appendix C Presentation of Nobel Prize

• Appendix D Man and Science in the 21st Century

• Appendix E A Teenager's Odyssey

• Notes

• Figures

• Index