Felix Bloch

This article is about the Swiss physicist. For the man accused of espionage, see Felix Bloch (diplomatic officer).

Felix Bloch
Born	(1905-10-23)23 October 1905 Zürich, Switzerland
Died	Zürich, Switzerland
Citizenship	Swiss, American
Nationality	Swiss
Fields	Physics
Institutions	University of California, Berkeley Stanford University
Alma mater	ETH Zürich and University of Leipzig
Doctoral advisor	Werner Heisenberg
Doctoral students	Carson D. Jeffries
Known for	NMR Bloch wall Bloch's Theorem Bloch Function (Wave) Bloch sphere
Notable awards	Nobel Prize for Physics (1952)

Felix Bloch (23 October 1905 – 10 September 1983) was a Swiss physicist, working mainly in the U.S. He and Edward Mills Purcell were awarded the 1952 Nobel Prize 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.

Life and work

Felix Bloch in the lab, 1950s

Bloch was born in Zürich, Switzerland to Jewish parents Gustav and Agnes Bloch.

He was educated at the Cantonal Gymnasium in Zurich and at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETHZ), also in Zürich. Initially studying engineering he soon changed to physics. During this time he attended lectures and seminars given by Peter Debye and Hermann Weyl at ETH Zürich and Erwin Schrödinger at the neighboring University of Zürich. A fellow student in these seminars was John von Neumann. Graduating in 1927 he continued his physics studies at the University of Leipzig with Werner Heisenberg, gaining his doctorate in 1928. His doctoral thesis established the quantum theory of solids, using Bloch waves to describe the electrons.

In 1940 he married Lore Misch.

He remained in European academia, studying with Wolfgang Pauli in Zürich, Niels Bohr in Copenhagen and Enrico Fermi 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 because he was Jewish. He emigrated to work at Stanford University in 1934. In the fall of 1938, Bloch began working with the University of California at Berkeley 37" cyclotron to determine the magnetic moment of the neutron. Bloch went on to become the first professor for theoretical physics at Stanford. In 1939, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. During WW II he worked on nuclear power at Los Alamos National Laboratory, before resigning to join the radar project at Harvard University.

After the war he concentrated on investigations into nuclear induction and nuclear magnetic resonance, which are the underlying principles of MRI. In 1946 he proposed the Bloch equations which determine the time evolution of nuclear magnetization. When CERN was being set up in the early 1950s, its founders were searching for someone of the stature and international prestige to head the fledgling international laboratory, and in 1954 Professor Bloch became CERN's first Director-General, at the time when construction was getting under way on the present Meyrin site and plans for the first machines were being drawn up. After leaving CERN, he returned to Stanford University, where he in 1961 was made Max Stein Professor of Physics.

At Stanford, he was the advisor of Carson D. Jeffries, who became a professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley.

He died in Zurich.

See also

• List of Jewish Nobel laureates

Further reading

• Bloch, F.; Staub, H. "Fission Spectrum", Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) (through predecessor agency Los Alamos Scientific Lab), United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the US Atomic Energy Commission), (August 18, 1943).

External links

• Biography and Bibliographic Resources, from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, United States Department of Energy
• http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1952/bloch-bio.html
• http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/spc/xml/sc0303.xml
• Oral History interview transcript with Felix Bloch 14 May 1964, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives
• Oral History interview transcript with Felix Bloch 15 August 1968, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives
• Oral History interview transcript with Felix Bloch 15 December 1981, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives
• Felix Bloch Papers, 1931–1987 (33 linear ft.) are housed in the Department of Special Collections and University Archives at Stanford University Libraries
• National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
• Felix Bloch Papers

Business positions
Preceded by Position created	First Director-General of CERN 1954-1955	Succeeded by Cornelis Bakker