1905-1938

Swiss-American physicist awarded the 1952 Physics Nobel Prize with Edward Purcell for precision nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques and discoveries made therewith, including magnetic moment measurements of the proton and neutron. NMR methods are widely used in physics and analytic chemistry to study nuclear structure and behavior and as a diagnostic tool in medicine. Bloch was also a founder of the quantum theory of electrons in metals and introduced the concept of spin-waves in ferromagnetism.