 In 1957, Lown was concerned with how to visualize an atherosclerotic aortic plaque, which occurs in the big coronary vessels that supply nutrients to the heart muscle.This would, he hoped, lead to discovering how to treat and prevent heart attack and sudden cardiac death.A discussion with a close friend, Elias Snitzer, a physicist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology led to an introduction to Michael Polanyi, a physicist with American Optical Company.