The chief thing that he contributed to the history of the MRI was the idea that the hydrogen in water, which is very prevalent in cancer cells, reacts differently to magnetic resonance.
(Don't understand what magnetic resonance is? Awesome. Most people wouldn't/don't. You can go here for a primer. Its an online version of a book sponsored by a European MRI group.)
The realization that cancer would react differently to magnetic resonance gave life to a lot of different ideas that led to the modern MRI.
So much so, that Raymond himself created one of the first machines:
Nonetheless, Field Focusing Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (FONAR) was the method used when he captured headlines in 1977, publishing the first image of a chest cavity of a live man. Initially, he had volunteered his own body for the job—without success. His associates told him he was too fat, recalls Dr Damadian. Indeed, “Indomitable”, which is what he called his machine, preferred Dr Minkoff's skinny torso. On July 3rd 1977, after four hours and 45 minutes of collecting data from 106 points, a picture was created.
So with that in mind, you'd think that Raymond would get a good portion of the credit by the Nobel committee.
You'd be wrong.
No I'm not religious. I'm not even close to religious. But Raymond is... and he's a creationist. Which might explain why the Nobel committee snubbed him. Even though his contribution to MRI was so important that GE had to pay him $130 million for patent infringements, along with a host of other companies paying him undisclosed sums.
The Nobel committee should be ashamed.
