Portrait of Paul Lauterbur

Birthday profile

Paul Lauterbur

Paul Lauterbur, American chemist and biophysicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2007)

Born
May 6, 1929
Died
March 27, 2007
Zodiac sign
Taurus
Birth year
1929

About Paul Lauterbur

Paul Christian Lauterbur (May 6, 1929 – March 27, 2007) was an American chemist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2003 with Peter Mansfield for his work which made the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) possible. Lauterbur was a professor at Stony Brook University from 1963 until 1985, where he conducted his research for the development of the MRI. In 1985 he became a professor along with his wife Joan Dawson at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for 22 years until his death in Urbana. He and Dawson established the Biomedical Magnetic Resonance Laboratory (BMRL) there. He never stopped working with undergraduates on research, and he served as a professor of chemistry, with appointments in bioengineering, biophysics, the College of Medicine at Urbana-Champaign and computational biology at the Center for Advanced Study. When Lauterbur first submitted his paper with his discoveries to Nature, the paper was rejected by the editors of the journal. Lauterbur received a BS in chemistry from the Case Institute of Technology, now part of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio where he became a Brother of the Alpha Delta chapter of Phi Kappa Tau fraternity.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Career and life highlights

The world when Paul Lauterbur was born

Paul Lauterbur was born in 1929. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1929

  • #1 song"Singin' in the Rain"
  • Top movieThe Broadway Melody (first Best Picture winner)
  • Best-selling bookA Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst baseball All-Star Game proposed
  • Top headlineStock market crashes on Black Tuesday
  • Technology milestoneFirst Academy Awards ceremony held
  • Defining fadYo-yos
  • Notable inventionCar radio
  • World population2.10 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderHerbert Hoover
  • Sports championPhiladelphia Athletics (World Series)
  • U.S. population121.8M

1929 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Paul Lauterbur's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19292026
Gas$0.21$3.45/gal
Average home$6,300$435,000
Average income$3,850$67,500
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.02$0.73
Population121.8M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.