Edward Raymond Andrew FRS

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

(27 June 1921 – 27 May 2001) was a 20th-century British scientist who was a pioneer of

nuclear magnetic resonance Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a physical phenomenon in which nuclei in a strong constant magnetic field are perturbed by a weak oscillating magnetic field (in the near field) and respond by producing an electromagnetic signal with a ...

. He was a primary figure in the development and creation of the world's first

MRI scanner The physics of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) concerns fundamental physical considerations of MRI techniques and technological aspects of MRI devices. MRI is a medical imaging technique mostly used in radiology and nuclear medicine in order ...

Life

He was born in

Boston, Lincolnshire Boston is a market town and inland port in the borough of the same name in the county of Lincolnshire, England. Boston is north of London, north-east of Peterborough, east of Nottingham, south-east of Lincoln, south-southeast of Hull ...

on 27 June 1921 the only child of English parents of Scots descent. He was educated at

Wellingborough School Wellingborough School is a co-educational day independent school in the market town of Wellingborough in Northamptonshire. It was established in 1595 and is one of the oldest schools in the country. The school today consists of a Prep school ...

where he was head boy. He then won a place at

Christ's College, Cambridge Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 170 graduate students. The college was founded by William Byngham in 1437 as ...

on a Natural Science Tripos from 1939 to 1942 under

C. P. Snow Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow, (15 October 1905 – 1 July 1980) was an English novelist and physical chemist who also served in several important positions in the British Civil Service and briefly in the UK government.''The Columbia Encyclope ...

Lawrence Bragg Sir William Lawrence Bragg, (31 March 1890 – 1 July 1971) was an Australian-born British physicist and X-ray crystallography, X-ray crystallographer, discoverer (1912) of Bragg's law, Bragg's law of X-ray diffraction, which is basic for t ...

Norman Feather Norman Feather FRS FRSE PRSE (16 November 1904 – 14 August 1978), was an English nuclear physicist. Feather and Egon Bretscher were working at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge in 1940, when they proposed that the 239 isotope of element ...

and

David Shoenberg David Shoenberg, MBE FRS, (4 January 1911 – 10 March 2004) was a British physicist who worked in condensed matter physics. Shoenberg is known for having developed experimental and theoretical principles to study the De Haas–Van Alphen effe ...

.Independent (newspaper) obituary 26 July 2001 From 1942 to 1945, during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

he was Scientific Officer at the Air Defence Research and Development Establishment in

Malvern Malvern or Malverne may refer to: Places Australia * Malvern, South Australia, a suburb of Adelaide * Malvern, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne * City of Malvern, a former local government area near Melbourne * Electoral district of Malvern, an e ...

studying the effects of gunflashes on

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...

. In 1945 he returned to Cambridge as a research student at Pembroke College and at the

Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...

. Here he worked with David Shoenberg on

superconductors Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in certain materials where electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic flux fields are expelled from the material. Any material exhibiting these properties is a superconductor. Unlike ...

, gaining a doctorate (PhD) in 1948. He then went to

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

for a year to work on

with Ed Purcell and Bersohn, also working on the

Pake doublet A Pake Doublet (or "Pake Pattern") is a characteristic line shape seen in solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance and electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy. It was first described by George Pake. It arises from dipolar coupling between isol ...

. He returned to Britain in 1949 to work with Jack Allen FRS at the Cavendish. Colleagues on the NMR project included Bob Eades, Dan Hyndman and Alwyn Rushworth. His students here included Waldo Hinshaw. In March 1952 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

. In 1954 he became professor of physics at the

University of North Wales , former_names = University College of North Wales (1884–1996) University of Wales, Bangor (1996–2007) , image = File:Arms_of_Bangor_University.svg , image_size = 250px , caption = Arms ...

in Bangor. Here he founded the British Radio-Frequency Spectroscopy Group (BRSG). In 1964 he moved to a chair at the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public university, public research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. The University of Nottingham belongs t ...

in place of Prof L. F. Bates. His work here included the development of the

from 1975 to 1977. In 1978 their success led to the development of the whole-body MRI scanner. After 19 years in Nottingham he moved to the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

in Gainesville as Graduate Professor of Radiology, Physics and Nuclear Engineering. In 1984 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of London The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

and won their Wellcome Medal in the same year. He died on 27 May 2001 aged 79.

Family

He was married twice: firstly to Mary with whom he had two daughters (Patricia and Charmian); and secondly in 1972 to Eunice.

Publications

*''Magnetic Resonance in Medicine'' (1984)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Andrew, Edward Raymond 1921 births 2001 deaths People from Boston, Lincolnshire Alumni of the University of Cambridge Academics of the University of Nottingham British physicists Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh