Editing Felix Bloch (section)

==Biography==
[[File:Felix Bloch 1950s.jpg|thumb|270px|Felix Bloch in the lab, 1950s]]

===Early life, education, and family===
Bloch was born in [[Zürich]], Switzerland to [[Jewish]]<ref>{{cite book|title=The Quantum Exodus|author=Fraser, Gordon|chapter=Chapter 7|page=182|year=2012|publisher=Oxford University Press|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xwGhmwYyDLQC&pg=PA182|isbn=978-0-19-959215-9}}</ref> parents Gustav and Agnes Bloch. Gustav Bloch, his father, was financially unable to attend university and worked as a wholesale grain dealer in Zürich.<ref name=HofstadterBioMemoir>{{Cite book|url=https://www.nap.edu/read/4547/chapter/3|title=Read "Biographical Memoirs: V.64" at NAP.edu|chapter=3|last=Hofstadter|first= Richard|year=1994|doi=10.17226/4547|isbn=978-0-309-04978-8|author-link=Richard Hofstadter|language=en}}</ref> Gustav moved to Zürich from [[Moravia]] in 1890 to become a Swiss citizen. Their first child was a girl born in 1902 while Felix was born three years later.<ref name=HofstadterBioMemoir />

Bloch entered public elementary school at the age of six and is said to have been teased, in part because he "spoke Swiss German with a somewhat different accent than most members of the class".<ref name=HofstadterBioMemoir /> He received support from his older sister during much of this time, but she died at the age of twelve, devastating Felix, who is said to have lived a "depressed and isolated life" in the following years.<ref name=HofstadterBioMemoir /> Bloch learned to play the piano by the age of eight and was drawn to arithmetic for its "clarity and beauty".<ref name=HofstadterBioMemoir /> Bloch graduated from elementary school at twelve and enrolled in the Cantonal Gymnasium in Zürich for secondary school in 1918. He was placed on a six-year curriculum here to prepare him for university. He continued his curriculum through 1924, even through his study of engineering and physics in other schools, though it was limited to mathematics and languages after the first three years. After these first three years at the Gymnasium, at age fifteen Bloch began to study at the [[ETH Zürich|Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule]] (ETHZ), also in Zürich. Although he initially studied 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 [[University of Leipzig|Leipzig]] to study with [[Werner Heisenberg]].<ref name="Stanford-physics-memorial">{{cite web |title=Memorial Resolution: Felix Bloch (1905 - 1983) |last1=Hofstadter |first1=Robert |last2=Chodorow |first2=Marvin |last3=Schawlow |first3=Arthur |last4=Walecka |first4=Dirk |url=https://physics.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/BlochF.pdf |archive-url=https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20170311100004/https://physics.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/BlochF.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=11 March 2017 |access-date=11 November 2017 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> Bloch became Heisenberg's first graduate student, and gained his doctorate in 1928.<ref name="Stanford-physics-memorial"/> His doctoral thesis established the [[quantum mechanics|quantum theory of solids]], using waves to describe [[electron]]s in periodic lattices.

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.<ref name="royalsoced1">[http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf Former Fellows of The Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783 – 2002] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150919152306/https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf |date=19 September 2015 }}. royalsoced.org.uk</ref> 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 (born September 15, 1949).<ref name="Stanford-physics-memorial"/><ref>{{Cite web | url=https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt3580367x/admin/ |title = Guide to the Felix Bloch Papers}}</ref>

===Career===
Bloch 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 "[[Domain wall (magnetism)#Bloch wall|Bloch walls]]", and theoretically proposed a concept of [[spin wave]]s, 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.<ref name="Stanford-physics-memorial"/> In 1932, Bloch returned to Leipzig to assume a position as "Privatdozent" (lecturer).<ref name="Stanford-physics-memorial"/> 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]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=PQgaAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Because+of+his+Jewish+faith%22 "Bloch, Felix"], ''[[Current Biography]]'', [[H. W. Wilson Company]], 1954. Accessed 24 February 2013. "Because of his Jewish faith, his position soon became uncomfortable and he went to Paris, where he lectured at the Institut Henri Poincaré."</ref>

In 1934, the chairman of [[Stanford University|Stanford]] Physics invited Bloch to join the faculty.<ref name="Stanford-physics-memorial"/> 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, 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.

During [[World War II|WWII]], Bloch briefly worked on the [[Manhattan Project|atomic bomb project]] at [[Los Alamos National Laboratory|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]].<ref name="AIP-oral-history">{{cite web |title=Oral Histories: Felix Bloch |first=Weiner |last=Charles |publisher=American Institute of Physics |date=15 August 1968 |access-date=11 November 2017 |url=https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/4510}}</ref>

After the war, he concentrated on investigations into nuclear induction and [[nuclear magnetic resonance]], which are the underlying principles of [[magnetic resonance imaging|MRI]].<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Alvarez | first1=Luis W. |author-link=Luis Walter Alvarez| last2=Bloch |first2=F. | year=1940 | title=A Quantitative Determination of the Neutron Moment in Absolute Nuclear Magnetons | journal=[[Physical Review]] | volume=57 | issue=2 | pages=111–122 | bibcode=1940PhRv...57..111A | doi=10.1103/PhysRev.57.111}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1=Bloch |first1=F. |last2=Hansen | first2=W. W. |author-link2=W. W. Hansen|last3=Packard |first3=Martin | date=1946-02-01 | title=Nuclear Induction | journal=[[Physical Review]] | volume=69 | issue= 3–4| pages=127 | bibcode=1946PhRv...69..127B | doi=10.1103/PhysRev.69.127| doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Shampo|first=M A|author2=Kyle R A|date=September 1995|title=Felix Bloch—developer of magnetic resonance imaging|journal=[[Mayo Clin. Proc.]]|volume=70|issue=9|page=889| pmid = 7643644| doi=10.4065/70.9.889}}</ref>  In 1946 he proposed the [[Bloch equations]] which determine the time evolution of nuclear magnetization. He was elected to the United States [[National Academy of Sciences]] in 1948.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Felix Bloch |url=http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/deceased-members/57619.html |access-date=2022-10-05 |website=www.nasonline.org}}</ref> Along with [[Edward Mills Purcell|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,<ref>{{Cite journal|url = https://cds.cern.ch/record/1730968|title = People and things : Felix Bloch |access-date = 1 September 2015|journal = CERN Courier|publisher = CERN|year = 1983 }}</ref> 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.

In 1964, he was elected a foreign member of the [[Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dwc.knaw.nl/biografie/pmknaw/?pagetype=authorDetail&aId=PE00002770 |title=F. Bloch (1905 - 1983) |publisher=Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences |access-date=22 May 2016}}</ref> He was also a member of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] and the [[American Philosophical Society]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Felix Bloch |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/felix-bloch |access-date=2022-10-05 |website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Felix+Bloch&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2022-10-05 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref>

Bloch died in Zürich in 1983.<ref name="royalsoced1"/>