Did you know...? There is a direct link between The Beatles and CT scans

In 1960s England, Electric and Musical Industries —EMI— was much more than just a record label. It was also a technological research company, with laboratories where engineers worked on projects as diverse as radars, computers and weapons systems. 

One of them was Godfrey Hounsfield, whom the company’s management had tasked with driving the more technological side of the business. But no matter how hard he tried, revenue failed to take off. The situation was so critical that the company was forced to drastically cut back its technology research division, putting promising projects on hold and reducing the staff in its laboratories.

That same year, four young men from Liverpool signed their first contract with Parlophone, a subsidiary of EMI. What initially seemed like just another addition to the company’s catalogue ended up being the greatest economic transformation in its history. 

By the mid-1960s, the Beatles were not just a cultural force but also an economic one: at their peak, their sales generated the equivalent of $650 every second. By 1967, they had more than doubled EMI’s profits in the five years since they signed with the company.

This unexpected financial windfall enabled EMI to turn its attention to research. At the same time as the Beatles were wrapping up the recording of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Hounsfield, along with scientist Allan Cormack came up with the idea of combining X-rays with a computer capable of assembling three-dimensional images of a human body. Their first major challenge was to image a brain, something that was almost impossible with traditional X-rays. The result was clear and took only five minutes.