Imaging Life is the first of a series of article collections called Nobel Prize Narratives, which seeks to tell the stories of the advancement of science through the popular appeal of the Nobel Prizes.
Since 1901 the Nobel Prizes have celebrated achievements in scientific and medical imaging that confer the greatest benefit to mankind. From the discovery of X-rays to the piecing together of elements that take part in one of the most complicated molecular machineries ever seen, the Nobel Prizes have rewarded ideas that have been at the forefront of progress in imaging for over a century.
Revisiting these Nobel Prizes offers an informative snapshot of the state-of-the-art thinking in each discipline at the time of the award, but tracing the development of imaging via the path from one Nobel Prize to another provides an all-together more instructive and revealing insight into how the thinking in this field has advanced over the decades, and how this has relied on the interplay between the traditional disciplines of Physics, Chemistry and Medicine. By tracing the individual paths of illumination that led to the discoveries celebrated by the award of a Nobel Prize, and by observing the relationship between related Nobel Prizes awarded at different points in history, it is possible to develop an overview of how the art of discovery itself has changed with time.
Imaging Life reveals the stories and images behind the advancement of scientific and medical imaging in a variety of formats:
Overview. As an introduction to each Narrative, a video takes you on a tour through some of the major Prize-awarded achievements in imaging, accompanied by an overview article that summarizes the main elements and insights behind each Prize.
Multimedia content. A navigable timeline introduces each milestone in the development of imaging. Clicking on each milestone allows visitors to access a host of information about that particular Nobel Prize, including articles, images, videos, and interview footage with Laureates.
Speed Read. A two-minute written summary captures the key information about each Nobel-Prize-awarding discovery in the timeline.
Historical Perspective. These in-depth articles will explore key elements in the path taken to the discovery that led to a Nobel Prize, such as the media's influence in publicizing the mysterious effects of X-rays, how a physicist inspired the search for the DNA structure, and why it could be argued that The Beatles' biggest legacy was in medical imaging.
Innovation. Nobel Laureates reveal the images that they would most like to see, which not only provides an insight into future scientific avenues in imaging but also hints at the research areas that future Laureates might come from.
More Nobel Prize Narratives that look at the advancement of other major scientific fields through the Nobel Prizes will be appearing on a regular basis on this site.
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