Felix Bloch

Who was Felix Bloch?

Felix Bloch (23 October 1905 – 10 September 1983) was a Swiss–American theoretical physicist who shared the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physics with Edward Mills Purcell "for their development of new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements and discoveries in connection therewith." He was the first Stanford University Nobel laureate. Felix Bloch was born in Zurich, Switzerland, to Jewish parents, Gustav Bloch and Agnes Mayer. Gustav was financially unable to attend university and worked as a wholesale grain dealer in Zurich. Their first child was a girl born in 1902, while Felix was born three years later. Bloch entered public elementary school at the age of six and is said to have been teased, in part because he "spoke Swiss German with a somewhat different accent than most members of the class".

Bloch made fundamental theoretical contributions to the understanding of ferromagnetism and electron behavior in crystal lattices. He is also considered one of the developers of nuclear magnetic resonance. Gustav moved to Zurich from Moravia in 1890 to become a Swiss citizen.

Historical significance

Felix Bloch was a Swiss–American theoretical physicist who shared the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physics with Edward Mills Purcell "for their development of new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements and discoveries in connection therewith.