Purcell Receives Joint Nobel Prize in Physics

Two American atomic scientists, one of them a professor at the University, won the Nobel Prize in physics yesterday in the final announcement of 1952 awards.

Edward Mills Purcell, 40 year old professor of Physics here, and Dr. Felix Block of Stanford University received the award for their development, separately, of a new method of measuring magnetic fields in atomic nuclei.

All of the Nobel Prize winners will be formally presented the awards, each worth $33,037 in cash, at ceremonies in Stockholm, December 10. The two physicists will share the cash prize.

Purcell and Block arrived at the discovery, known now as the "nuclear resonance" method, independently. The Harvard and Stanford groups headed by each were never aware of the other's discoveries.

The "nuclear resonance" method permits extremely accurate measurements of nuclear properties. It can be used on matter in a solid or liquid state (such as a drop of water) and does not require the expensive and elaborate equipment necessary for such measurements with other methods.

Dr. Purcell and his group succeeded in devising apparatus which enables magnetic properties to be determined to an accuracy of one part in a million.

Their technique consists, essentially, of placing a substance containing the atoms they wish to study inside the core of a high frequency coil, which in turn is placed in the field of a strong magnet. When oscillations corresponding to the resonance frequency of the nuclei are fed into the coil, the magnetic activities of the nuclei are amplified and can be easily recorded.