What is Edward Mills Purcell known for?
I'm best known for discovering nuclear magnetic resonance, or NMR, in 1946. I was working with my graduate students on a new way to measure magnetic moments of atomic nuclei, and we found that certain nuclei in a solid could absorb and re-emit radio waves when placed in a strong magnetic field. That discovery earned me the Nobel Prize in 1952, which I shared with Felix Bloch. But I'm also proud of my work in radio astronomy—detecting the 21-centimeter line from neutral hydrogen in interstellar space. That line has become a fundamental tool for mapping the structure of our galaxy. And I co-wrote the textbook 'Electricity and Magnetism' with David Griffiths, which I hope has helped students see physics as a way of thinking, not just a collection of formulas.
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