physics

Peter Mansfield

Peter Mansfield is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Peter Mansfield rather than just read about it. In short: Sir Peter Mansfield (9 October 1933 – 8 February 2017) was an English physicist who was awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Paul Lauterbur, for discoveries concerning Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Mansfield was a professor at the University of Nottingham.

Key takeaways

Peter Mansfield belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Peter Mansfield to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Peter Mansfield from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Sir Peter Mansfield (9 October 1933 – 8 February 2017) was an English physicist who was awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Paul Lauterbur, for discoveries concerning Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Mansfield was a professor at the University of Nottingham.

Early life Mansfield was born in Lambeth, London on 9 October 1933, to Sidney George (b. 1904, d. 1966) and Lillian Rose Mansfield (b. 1905, d. 1984; née Turner). Mansfield was the youngest of three sons. Mansfield grew up in Camberwell. During World War II he was evacuated from London, initially to Sevenoaks and then twice to Torquay, Devon, where he was able to stay with the same family on both occasions. On returning to London after the war he was told by a school master to take the 11+ exam. Having never heard of the exam before, and having no time to prepare, Mansfield failed to gain a place at the local Grammar school. His mark was, however, high enough for him to go to a Central School in Peckham. At the age of 15 he was told by a careers teacher that science wasn't for him. He left school shortly afterwards to work as a printer's assistant. At the age of 18, having developed an interest in rocketry, Mansfield took up a job with the Rocket Propulsion Department of the Ministry of Supply in Westcott, Buckinghamshire. Eighteen months later he was called up for National Service.

Education After serving in the army for two years, Mansfield returned to Westcott and started studying for A-levels at night school. Two years later he was admitted to study physics at Queen Mary College, University of London. Mansfield graduated with a BSc from Queen Mary in 1959. His final-year project, supervised by Jack Powles, was to construct a portable, transistor-based spectrometer to measure the Earth's magnetic field. Towards the end of this project Powles offered Mansfield a position in his NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) research group. Powles' interest was in studying molecular motion, mainly liquids. Mansfield's project was to build a pulsed NMR spectrometer to study solid polymer systems. He received his PhD in 1962; his thesis was titled Proton magnetic resonance relaxation in solids by transient methods.

Career Following his PhD, Mansfield was invited to postdoctoral research with Charlie Slichter at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he carried out an NMR study of doped metals. In 1964, Mansfield returned to England to take up a place as a lecturer at Nottingham University where he could continue his studies in multiple-pulse NMR. He was successively appointed Senior Lecturer in 1968 and Reader in 1970. During this period his team developed the MRI equipment with the help of grants from the Medical Research Council. It was not until the 1970s with Paul Lauterbur's and Mansfield's developments that NMR could be used to produce images of the body. In 1979 Mansfield was appointed Professor of the Department of Physics until his retirement in 1994.

1962: Research Associate, Department of Physics, University of Illinois 1964: Lecturer, Department of Physics, University of Nottingham 1968: Senior Lecturer, Department of Physics, University of Nottingham 1970: Reader, Department of Physics, University of Nottingham 1972–73: Senior Visitor, Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, Heidelberg 1979: Professor, Department of Physics, University of Nottingham Mansfield is credited with inventing 'slice selection' for MRI, i.e. the method by which a localised axial slice of a subject can be selectively imaged, rather than the entire subject – and understanding how the radio signals from MRI can be mathematically analysed, making interpretation of the signals into a useful image a possibility. He is also credited with discovering how fast imaging could be possible by developing the MRI protocol called echo-planar imaging. Echo-planar imaging allows T2* weighted images to be collected many times faster than previously possible. It also has made functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) feasible. Whilst working at Nottingham University, Mansfield tested the first full body prototype, installed just before Christmas, 1978. Mansfield was so keen, that he volunteered to test it himself and produced the first scan of a live patient. The prototype machine is now an exhibit, in the Medical Section of the Science Museum.

Awards and honours

Private life Mansfield married Jean Margaret Kibble (b. 1935) on 1 September 1962. He had two daughters. Mansfield died in Nottingham on 8 February 2017, aged 83.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Peter Mansfield

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Peter Mansfield claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Peter Mansfield before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Peter Mansfield ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Peter Mansfield

In research: Peter Mansfield appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Peter Mansfield in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Peter Mansfield is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1933 births, 2017 deaths, Alumni of Queen Mary University of London, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Peter Mansfield outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Peter Mansfield in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Peter Mansfield means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Peter Mansfield out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Peter Mansfield in simple terms?

Why does Peter Mansfield matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Peter Mansfield?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Peter Mansfield.