Felix Bloch

Felix Bloch in the lab, 1950s

Bloch was born in Zürich, Switzerland to Jewish[3] parents Gustav and Agnes Bloch.

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.[4] Bloch became Heisenberg's first graduate student, and gained his doctorate in 1928.[4] His doctoral thesis established the quantum theory of solids, using Bloch waves to describe electrons in periodic lattices.

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", and theoretically proposed a concept of spin waves, excitations of magnetic structure; 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.[4] In 1932, Bloch returned to Leipzig to assume a position as "Privatdozent" (lecturer).[4] 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.[5]

In 1934, the chairman of Stanford Physics invited Bloch to join the faculty.[4] Bloch accepted the offer and emigrated to the United States. In the fall of 1938, Bloch began working with the 37 inch 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.

On March 14, 1940, Bloch married Lore Clara Misch (1911–1996), a fellow physicist working on X-ray crystallography, whom he had met at an American Physical Society meeting.[6] They had four children, twins George Jacob Bloch and Daniel Arthur Bloch (born January 15, 1941), son Frank Samuel Bloch (born January 16, 1945), and daughter Ruth Hedy Bloch Alexander (born September 15, 1949).[4][7]

During WWII, Bloch briefly worked on the atomic bomb project at Los Alamos. Disliking the military atmosphere of the laboratory and uninterested in the theoretical work there, Bloch left to join the radar project at Harvard University.[8]

After the war, he concentrated on investigations into nuclear induction and nuclear magnetic resonance, which are the underlying principles of MRI.[9] [10] [11] 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.

When CERN was being set up in the early 1950s, its founders were searching for someone of stature and international prestige to head the fledgling international laboratory, and in 1954 Professor Bloch became CERN's first Director-General,[12] 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.

In 1964, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.[13]

Bloch died in Zürich in 1983.[6]

• List of Jewish Nobel laureates
• List of things named after Felix Bloch

• "Nobel Prize for Physics, 1952". Nature. 170 (4335): 911–912. 1952. Bibcode:1952Natur.170R.911.. doi:10.1038/170911b0.
• "Deputy Director-General: Prof. E. Amaldi". Nature. 174 (4434): 774–775. 1954. Bibcode:1954Natur.174R.774.. doi:10.1038/174774c0.
• McGraw-Hill Modern Men of Science. 1. McGraw-Hill. 1966. pp. 45–46. ISBN 978-0-07-045217-6.
• National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. 61. James T. White & Co. 1984. pp. 310–312. ISBN 0-88371-040-4.

• 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).

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Felix Bloch

• Felix Bloch on Nobelprize.org
• 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