Computerized axial tomography was conceived by William Oldendorf and developed independently by Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield (Hounsfield, Sir Godfrey Newbold) and Allan MacLeod Cormack (Cormack, Allan MacLeod), who shared a 1979 Nobel Prize for their inventions. A major advance in imaging technology, it became generally available in the early 1970s. Detectors record the strength of the exiting X-rays; this information is then processed by computer to produce a detailed two-dimensional cross-sectional image of the body. A series of such images in parallel planes or around an axis can show the location of abnormalities (especially tumours and other masses) more precisely than can conventional X-ray images.