Edward Mills Purcell

Edward Mills Purcell (1912–1997) was an American physicist who shared the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering nuclear magnetic resonance in liquids and solids.

Felix Bloch: Swiss-American physicist who shared the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering nuclear magnetic resonance in liquids and solids. Bloch independently discovered nuclear magnetic resonance in liquids at Stanford, alongside Purcell’s Harvard work.
Nuclear magnetic resonance: A phenomenon in which atomic nuclei absorb and re-emit radiofrequency energy in a magnetic field. Purcell’s Nobel-recognized discovery was the first observation of this phenomenon in bulk matter.
Radar: A system that detects objects by transmitting radio waves and analyzing their reflected signals. Radar engineering trained Purcell’s group to generate and detect the radiofrequency signals used in resonance experiments.
Magnetic resonance imaging: A medical imaging technique that uses nuclear magnetic resonance signals to map structures inside the body. MRI is a major medical application of the nuclear resonance phenomenon Purcell helped uncover.
Norman Ramsey: American physicist whose separated oscillatory fields method greatly improved the precision of atomic and molecular measurements. Ramsey worked with Purcell at Harvard and extended precision resonance methods.
Nuclear spin: An intrinsic quantum angular momentum carried by atomic nuclei, associated with a magnetic moment. Nuclear spin gives the nuclei in Purcell’s experiments magnetic moments that can resonate.
Harvard University: A private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, founded in 1636. Purcell’s team made its landmark resonance observation at Harvard in 1945.
Chemical shift: The change in a nucleus’s resonance frequency caused by its electronic chemical environment. Chemical shifts made nuclear magnetic resonance useful for distinguishing molecular structures.
Isidor Isaac Rabi: American physicist who developed molecular-beam magnetic resonance and received the 1944 Nobel Prize in Physics. Rabi’s resonance experiments established methods and ideas that preceded Purcell’s discovery.
Larmor precession: The precession of a magnetic moment around an applied magnetic field at a frequency proportional to field strength. The precession frequency determines the radiofrequency at which Purcell’s nuclei absorb energy.

Linked from 5 pages