100 YEARS OF X-RAYS AND 50 YEARS OF NMR

Discovery of X-rays by W. C. Roentgen was the result of systematic pro bing into a chance observation. Ever since their discovery, one hundre d years ago, Xrays have contributed significantly towards human health and scientific research, These contributions will continue to grow ex ponentially, with the development of synchrotron sources of X-rays and solid state detectors, Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), discovered 5 0 years ago independently by Bloch and Purcell, also has evolved treme ndously since its discovery, The development of Fourier transform and multidimensional NMR has enabled structures of biological macromolecul es to be determined in solution, thereby providing information complem entary to that obtained from X-ray techniques, The techniques of magne tic resonance imaging and X-ray transmission computed tomography are p roving invaluable in the diagnosis and treatment of human disease.