Felix Bloch

Felix Bloch was born on October 23, 1905, in Zürich, Switzerland. Studying physics under Peter Debye and Erwin Schrödinger at ETH Zürich, Bloch earned his doctorate under Werner Heisenberg at the University of Leipzig in 1928. His doctoral thesis formulated Bloch's theorem and Bloch waves, providing the fundamental quantum mechanical explanation for how electrons navigate crystal lattices in solid matter, which remains the cornerstone of modern semiconductor physics.

Fleeing Nazi Germany in 1933, Bloch joined Stanford University in California, becoming its first professor of theoretical physics. During World War II, he worked on radar countermeasure research and the Manhattan Project. In late 1945, Bloch and his Stanford colleagues developed nuclear induction, enabling the precise measurement of magnetic moments of atomic nuclei in liquids and solids without destroying the sample.

This breakthrough in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) earned Bloch and Harvard's Edward Mills Purcell the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physics, ultimately laying the foundation for modern Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), which saves millions of lives annually. In 1954, Bloch served as the historic first Director-General of CERN in Geneva, helping build the world’s premier particle physics laboratory.