Inventor of the Mri
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Paul C. Lauterbur
The American Chemist, Paul C. Lauterbur, was born May 6th in the year of 1929. His family was of Luxembourgish ancestry. He was born in Sydney, Ohio and remained there for his childhood. He was the son of Edward Joseph Lauterbur and Gertrude Lauterbur. They had a total of four children. The first was Thomas who unfortunately passed away shortly after being born, then Paul, then his younger brother Edward Joseph Lauterbur II and then the youngest, their sister Margaret. Pauls father worked in town while his mother stayed at home and took care of the house and children. Their house was always full of tons of pets. Some were normal house pets like dogs, birds, fish, etc. and then they had some more exotic pets like snakes, newts, and turtles. In Pauls memory, his childhood was a very “idyllic time.”
Paul attended a parochial school, Holy Angels School. When he thinks back he doesnt remember much about his time spent there. The only thing that really stuck with him in his memories is the fact that the nuns most valued discipline and order over everything else. At the same time that Paul and his family were moving to a farm outside of town, Paul was being transferred into public high school. Paul was a graduate from Sidney High School. There they dedicated a new Chemistry, Biology, and Physics wing in his honor.
After high school Paul went on to attend the Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, which is known today as the Case Western Reserve University. This was a school of engineering. Pauls father recommended this school because he didnt know what scientists did as an occupation, but he knew that an engineer would always be able to find a job. Little to his fathers knowledge, if Paul could chose any major it would always be chemistry. Even when Paul was a young boy he had an interest in chemistry. He had little chemistry sets of simple chemicals and apparatus. Also in his teen years he built a laboratory in his basement. Working on little experiments he came to realize that he enjoyed the smell of burning sulfur. His high school science teachers also took note that he enjoyed experimenting alone and gave him the privilege of doing his own experiments at the back of class. One teacher was even cool enough to stand up for him when school authorities thought some of the experiments were too dangerous. He was actually saved from expulsion a couple times because of that teacher.
Paul graduated from the Case Institute of Technology in 1951 with a B.S in chemistry. By the time Paul graduated he was sick of listening to professors give lectures. All he wanted was to get back in the lab. So he became a research associate at the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He also took graduate courses at the University of Pittsburgh for free as an institute employee. There he began to study nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). His studies were shortly interrupted when he got drafted into the Army in 1954-1955. While serving in the Army, Paul was given the opportunity to work on a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) machine. By the time he was done serving he had written four scientific papers based on his work.
When Paul got out of the Army he returned to the Mellon Institute to continue his NMR research. His group