Bloch, << blok, >> Felix (1905-1983), a Swiss-born American physicist, made important contributions to the theory of electrical and magnetic properties of solids. He shared the 1952 Nobel Prize in physics with another American physicist, Edward M. Purcell, for developing a simple but precise method of determining the magnetic properties of nuclei. This method is used in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a technique used to produce images of tissues in the body. In 1939, Bloch suggested an experiment to determine certain magnetic properties of uncharged nuclear particles called neutrons.
Bloch was born on Oct. 23, 1905, in Zurich, Switzerland. He received a Ph.D. degree from the University of Leipzig in 1928 and became a professor at Stanford University in 1934. He died on Sept. 10, 1983.
