The Development of Technology and Its Influence on Nuclear Medicine
by Tess Hughes
Introduction
The development of technology and Nuclear Medicine imaging is a conglomeration of many
scientific discoveries. This assignment, written as an exercise to learn 'html', discusses some of those innovations that have
made a substantial impact on Nuclear Medicine and its future. The emergence of the basic
components of the computer rapidly accelerated the progress of technological advances in
medical imaging. For more information on Nuclear Medicine, please visit NucMed Links.
1940-49
One of the most pivotal inventions of the century,the transistor, was invented
by Bill Shockley at Bell Laboratories in 1947.
Smaller, faster, cheaper, and more reliable than the vacuum tube, the transistor
also generated much less heat. 1
They therefore did not attract
moths, which had always short-circuit the computers, and were responsible for the term
debugging.
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Figure 12
Bill Shockley
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Figure 23
Hofstadter
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Another critical discovery, the sodium iodide crystal, was developed by Hofstadter in 1948. This enabled gamma ray counting and earned Hofstadter the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1961.
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