Felix Bloch

About Felix Bloch

Who is it?: Physicist
Birth Day: October 23, 1905
Birth Place: Zürich, Swiss
Died On: 10 September 1983(1983-09-10) (aged 77)\nZürich, Switzerland
Birth Sign: Scorpio
Citizenship: Swiss, American
Alma mater: ETH Zürich and University of Leipzig
Known for: NMR Magnon Bloch wall Bloch's Theorem Bloch Function (Wave) Bloch sphere
Awards: Nobel Prize for Physics (1952)
Fields: Physics
Institutions: Stanford University University of California, Berkeley
Doctoral advisor: Werner Heisenberg
Doctoral students: Carson D. Jeffries

Felix Bloch Net Worth

Felix Bloch was born on October 23, 1905 in Zürich, Swiss, is Physicist. Felix Bloch was a Swiss born American physicist who made significant contributions to the advancement of the subject in the twentieth century. He and E.M. Purcell shared the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physics for their path-breaking work on developing the nuclear magnetic resonance method of measuring the magnetic field of atomic nuclei. After passing secondary school, he studied under the guidance of several imminent scientist of his time. He became an accomplished physicist who witnessed the emergence of modern quantum theory and explored its application on the conductivity of metals and ferromagnetism. All through his academic and research career, he contributed immensely to solid-state physics; several theorems and laws have been named after him. He is remembered for the development of nuclear magnetic resonance techniques, which allowed highly precise measurements of magnetism of atomic nuclei. It went on to become an influential tool in both physics and chemistry, to analyze large molecules. Apart from Physics, he was interested in music, nature, literature, mountain climbing, and skiing. He had a great wit and was full of ironic humour. Gifted with an analytical bent of mind, he liked to get to the bottom of any problem and find a solution.
Felix Bloch is a member of Scientists

💰 Net worth: Under Review

Some Felix Bloch images

Biography/Timeline

1927

He was educated at the Cantonal Gymnasium in Zürich 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. Bloch graduated in 1927, and was encouraged by Debye to go to Leipzig to study with Werner Heisenberg. Bloch became Heisenberg's first graduate student, and gained his doctorate in 1928. His doctoral thesis established the quantum theory of solids, using Bloch waves to describe electrons in periodic lattices.

1932

He remained in European academia, working on Superconductivity with Wolfgang Pauli in Zürich; with Hans Kramers and Adriaan Fokker in Holland; with Heisenberg on ferromagnetism, where he developed a description of boundaries between magnetic domains, now known as "Bloch walls"; with Niels Bohr in Copenhagen, where he worked on a theoretical description of the stopping of charged particles traveling through matter; and with Enrico Fermi in Rome. In 1932, Bloch returned to Leipzig to assume a position as "Privatdozent" (lecturer). In 1933, immediately after Hitler came to power, he left Germany because he was Jewish, returning to Zürich, before traveling to Paris to lecture at the Institut Henri Poincaré.

1934

In 1934, the chairman of Stanford Physics invited Bloch to join the faculty. Bloch accepted the offer and emigrated to the United States. In the fall of 1938, Bloch began working with the 37" cyclotron at the University of California at Berkeley 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.

1940

In 1940 he married Lore Misch, a Physicist working on X-ray crystallography, whom he had met at an American Physical Society meeting. The couple had four children.

1946

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. Along with Edward Purcell, Bloch was awarded the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on nuclear magnetic induction.

1950

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.

1964

In 1964, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.