Felix Bloch

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Felix Bloch

This page addresses only the Swiss physicist, for the man accused of espionage see Felix Bloch (diplomatic officer)
Felix Bloch (diplomatic officer)

Felix Bloch is a former director of European and Canadian Affairs in the US Department of State. He is known in connection with Robert Hanssen espionage case....

Felix Bloch (October 23, 1905 – September 10, 1983) was a Swiss

Switzerland

Switzerland is a landlocked Swiss Alps country of roughly 7.7 million people in Western Europe with an area of 41,285 km?. Switzerland is a federal republic consisting of 26 states called Cantons of Switzerland....
physicist

Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many Physics#Major fields of physics spanning all length scales: from atom particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole ....
, working mainly in the U.S.

h was born in Zürich

Zürich

Z?rich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Z?rich. The city is Switzerland's main commercial and cultural centre and sometimes called the Cultural Capital of Switzerland, the political capital of Switzerland being Berne....
, Switzerland to Jewish parents Gustav and Agnes Bloch. He was educated there and at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, also in Zürich.

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Encyclopedia

Felix Bloch (October 23, 1905 – September 10, 1983) was a Swiss

Switzerland

Physicist

Life and work

Bloch was born in Zürich

Zürich

Physics

Physics is the natural science which examines basic concepts such as energy, force, and spacetime and all that derives from these, such as mass, charge, matter and its Motion ....
. During this time he attended lectures and seminars given by Peter Debye

Peter Debye

Peter Joseph William Debye was a Netherlands physics and physical chemistry, and Nobel laureate....
and Hermann Weyl

Hermann Weyl

Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl was a Germany mathematician. Although much of his working life was spent in Z?rich, Switzerland and then Princeton, New Jersey, he is associated with the University of G?ttingen tradition of mathematics, represented by David Hilbert and Hermann Minkowski....
at ETH Zürich and Erwin Schrödinger

Erwin Schrödinger

Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schr?dinger was an Austrian theoretical physicist who achieved fame for his contributions to quantum mechanics, especially the Schr?dinger equation, for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1933....
at the neighboring University of Zürich. A fellow student in these seminars was John von Neumann

John von Neumann

John von Neumann was a Hungarian American mathematician who made major contributions to a vast range of fields, including set theory, functional analysis, quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, continuous geometry, economics and game theory, computer science, numerical analysis, hydrodynamics , and statistics, as well as many other mathematical...
. Graduating in 1927 he continued his physics studies at the University of Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest University in Europeand currently the List_of_universities_in_Germany#Universities_by_age university in Germany....
with Werner Heisenberg

Werner Heisenberg

Werner Heisenberg was a German Theoretical physics who made foundational contributions to quantum mechanics and is best known for asserting the uncertainty principle of quantum theory....
, gaining his doctorate in 1928. His doctoral thesis established the quantum theory of solids, using Bloch wave

Bloch wave

A Bloch wave or Bloch state, named after Felix Bloch, is the wavefunction of a particle placed in a Particle in a one-dimensional lattice ....
s to describe the electrons.

He remained in European academia, studying with Wolfgang Pauli

Wolfgang Pauli

Wolfgang Ernst Pauli was an Austrian theoretical physicist noted for his work on spin , and for the discovery of the Pauli exclusion principle underpinning the structure of matter and the whole of chemistry....
in Zürich, Niels Bohr

Niels Bohr

Niels Henrik David Bohr was a Denmark physicist who made fundamental contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922....
in Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban area with a population of 1,153,615 . Copenhagen is situated on the Islands of Zealand and Amager....
and Enrico Fermi

Enrico Fermi

Enrico Fermi was an Italian physicist most noted for his work on the development of the first nuclear reactor, and for his contributions to the development of Quantum mechanics, nuclear physics and particle physics, and statistical mechanics....
in Rome before he went back to Leipzig assuming a position as privatdozent (lecturer). In 1933, immediately after Hitler came to power, he left Germany, emigrating to work at Stanford University

Stanford University

Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private university research university located in Stanford, California, California, United States....
in 1934, where he became the first professor for theoretical physics. In 1939, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. During WW II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
he worked on atomic energy

Atomic energy

Atomic energy is energy produced by atoms.*Nuclear energy, the energy resulting of potential difference of the nuclear force*Nuclear reaction, a process in which two nuclei or nuclear particles collide, to produce different products than the initial products; see also nuclear fission and nuclear fusion....
at Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos National Laboratory is a United States Department of Energy United States Department of Energy National Labs, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC , located in Los Alamos, New Mexico....
, before resigning to join the radar

Radar

Radar is a system that uses electromagnetic radiation waves to identify the range, altitude, direction, or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as aircraft, ships, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain....
project at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher learning in the United States....
.

After the war he concentrated on investigations into nuclear induction and nuclear magnetic resonance

Nuclear magnetic resonance

Nuclear magnetic resonance is the name given to a physical resonance phenomenon involving the observation of specific quantum mechanics magnetism properties of an atomic atomic nucleus in the presence of an applied, external magnetic field....
, which are the underlying principles of MRI

Magnetic resonance imaging

GaneshMagnetic resonance imaging , or nuclear magnetic resonance imaging , is primarily a medical imaging technique most commonly used in radiology to visualize the structure and function of the body....
. In 1946 he proposed the Bloch equations

Relaxation (NMR)

In Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and Magnetic resonance imaging the term relaxation describes several processes by which nuclear magnetization prepared in a non-equilibrium state return to the equilibrium distribution....
which determine the time evolution of nuclear magnetization. He and Edward Mills Purcell

Edward Mills Purcell

Edward Mills Purcell was an United States physicist who shared the 1952 Nobel Prize for Physics for his independent discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance in liquids and in solids....
were awarded the 1952 Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize , established in the 1895 will of Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel; it was first awarded in Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Nobel Prize in Literature, and Nobel Peace Prize in 1901....
for "their development of new ways and methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements." In 1954–1955, he served for one year as the first Director-General of CERN

CERN

The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , , is the world's largest particle physics laboratory, situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the France-Switzerland border, established in 1954 in science....
. In 1961, he was made Max Stein Professor of Physics at Stanford University

Stanford University

Footnotes

External links

, from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

The Office of Scientific and Technical Information is a component of the Office of Science within the U.S. Department of Energy ....
, United States Department of Energy
United States Department of Energy

The United States Department of Energy is a United States Cabinet-level department of the United States government of the United States responsible for Energy policy of the United States and nuclear safety....

Research resources

Bloch, F.; Staub, H. .
(33 linear ft.) are housed in the at