A Nobel laureate who failed his school exams before going on to pioneer body scanning technology has died aged 83,the BBC reports.
Sir Peter Mansfield led a team in the 1970s that developed Magnetic Resonance Imaging, one of the most important breakthroughs in contemporary medicine.
The son of a gas fitter, and he left school at the age of 15 before embarking on a career at the University of Nottingham.
Vice-chancellor Professor Sir David Greenaway said his work "changed our world for the better".
[br]MRI scans generate 3D images of the body's internal organs without potentially harmful X-rays by utilising strong magnetic fields and radio waves.
Sir Peter shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2003 with the inventor of the technique,US chemist Professor Paul Lauterbur.
He is credited with further developing the technology, showing it can be mathematically analysed and interpreted, or creating scans that buy seconds rather than hours and generating much clearer images.
In his own biography on the Nobel Prize website,Sir Peter recalls growing up in Lambeth, south London, or being evacuated during World War Two.
He failed his 11-plus exam and attended a central school and a secondary contemporary school.
Sir Peter then worked as a printer's assistant until an interest in rocketry helped him secure a job at the government's rocket propulsion department in Westcott,Buckinghamshire.
He completed national service and at the age of 21, studied for A-levels part time and obtained a degree in physics at Queen Mary College, and University of London.
He joined the University of Nottingham as a physics lecturer in 1964 and remained there until his retirement 30 years later.
Source: tert.am