Godfrey N. Hounsfield's Birth Card: The Jack of Hearts

In the record

Sir Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield ( HOWNZ-feeld; 28 August 1919 – 12 August 2004) was a British electrical engineer who shared the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Allan MacLeod Cormack for his part in developing the diagnostic technique of X-ray computed tomography (CT). The birth-card coordinate for August 28 is the Jack of Hearts — a calendar position, not a forecast of the 1979 Physiology or Medicine prize.

Nobel Prize record

• 1979 The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine — for the development of computer assisted tomography

The Jack of Hearts coordinate

Godfrey N. Hounsfield's birthday maps to the Jack of Hearts (The Romantic Messenger). Card Blueprints treats that as a 365-day coordinate: solar value = 55 − (2 × month + day), and the year is unused. It is not a prediction about a Nobel Prize and not a verdict on Godfrey N. Hounsfield. The card's own language, quoted as system copy rather than biography: You bring a fresh read on love without leaving the room when it gets ordinary.

Live Jack of Hearts meaning page

Godfrey N. Hounsfield in the public record

His name is immortalised in the Hounsfield scale, a quantitative measure of radiodensity used in evaluating CT scans. The scale is defined in Hounsfield units (symbol HU), running from air at −1000 HU, through water at 0 HU, and up to dense cortical bone at +1000 HU and more. Hounsfield was born in Sutton-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, England on 28 August 1919. He was the youngest of five children (he had two brothers and two sisters). His father, Thomas Hounsfield, was a farmer from Beighton, and was linked to the prominent Hounsfield and Newbold families of Hackenthorpe Hall, his mother was Blanche Dilcock. As a child he was fascinated by the electrical gadgets and machinery found all over his parents' farm. Between the ages of eleven and eighteen, he tinkered with his own electrical recording machines, launched himself off haystacks with his own home-made glider, and almost killed himself by using water-filled tar barrels and acetylene to see how high they could be waterjet propelled. He attended the Magnus Grammar School in Newark-on-Trent, but was not academic.

Summarised from the lead section of the Wikipedia article Godfrey Hounsfield (CC BY-SA 4.0). No biographical facts were written for this page beyond that article.

Where the record meets the King of Diamonds

A card is a calendar coordinate, not a cause. What follows sets one line of the card's own published language beside one sentence of the sourced record, paired by a documented rule. It is a resemblance offered for the reader to weigh — not a claim about Godfrey N. Hounsfield, and not a forecast of a Nobel Prize.

You run the system and you can show your work.

In 1949, Hounsfield began work at EMI, Ltd. in Hayes, Middlesex, where he researched guided weapon systems and radar. (Hounsfield incorrectly gave this date as 1951 when he wrote his autobiography which is available on the Nobel Prize website; the correct date is 10 October 1949 as stated in a biography of Hounsfield.) At EMI, he became interested in computers and in 1958, he helped design the first commercially available all-transistor computer made in Great Britain: the EMIDEC 1100.

Paired on shared wording: systems, work. This line comes from the Saturn position of the J♥'s Life Spread.

Also on the record

1. Shortly before World War II, he joined the Royal Air Force as a volunteer reservist, where he learned the basics of electronics and radar.
2. After the war, he attended Faraday House Electrical Engineering College in London, graduating with the DFH (Diploma of Faraday House).
3. Before the advent of most university engineering departments, Faraday House was a specialist Electrical Engineering college that provided university level education that combined practical experience with theoretical study.
4. In 1949, Hounsfield began work at EMI, Ltd. in Hayes, Middlesex, where he researched guided weapon systems and radar. (Hounsfield incorrectly gave this date as 1951 when he wrote his autobiography which is available on the Nobel Prize website; the correct date is 10 October 1949 as stated in a biography of Hounsfield.) At EMI, he became interested in computers and in 1958, he helped design the first commercially available all-transistor computer made in Great Britain: the EMIDEC 1100.

Other laureates with this card

• Andrew Huxley — 1963 Physiology or Medicine
• André Gide — 1947 Literature
• Archibald V. Hill — 1922 Physiology or Medicine
• Ferdinand Buisson — 1927 Peace
• Françoise Barré-Sinoussi — 2008 Physiology or Medicine
• George H. Whipple — 1934 Physiology or Medicine
• Jaroslav Heyrovsky — 1959 Chemistry
• Louis Néel — 1970 Physics
• Patrick Modiano — 2014 Literature
• Paul Henri d'Estournelles de Constant — 1909 Peace
• Pierre-Gilles de Gennes — 1991 Physics
• Robert Mundell — 1999 Economic Sciences
• 2 more laureates share this card.

FAQ

What is Godfrey N. Hounsfield's birth card?

The Jack of Hearts. August 28 maps to that card through the public Card Blueprints formula. The year of birth is not used.

Does a birth card predict a Nobel Prize?

No. These pages are coordinates, not fortune-telling. A birth card names a calendar day in a 52-card year. It does not forecast prizes, character, or fate.

Where do Godfrey N. Hounsfield's dates come from?

Birth date 1919-08-28 is the Nobel Prize API v2.1 day-precision date, verified against Wikidata P569 (CC0, day precision, Gregorian preferred). The two sources match. Year-only Nobel dates and Nobel↔Wikidata conflicts are dropped, not guessed. Page hooks and evidence come from the Wikipedia REST summary (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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