Edward Purcell

PhysicistCambridge, MA

Nobel Prize WinnerScientist

Listen to Edward Purcell’s Oral History on Voices of the Manhattan Project

Edward Purcell (1912-1997) was an American physicist who won the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance, the eventual basis for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Purcell worked on microwave radiation at the MIT Rad Lab during World War II, and was briefly involved in some of the Trinity test preparations.

He was close to J. Robert Oppenheimer after the war when both were at Harvard University, and was with him when the United States conducted its first test of a hydrogen bomb. He also had a positive relationship with Manhattan Project physicist Herbert York, whom he praised for his own efforts to chronicle the project as well as his work on the early American space program.

Edward Purcell’s Timeline

1912 Aug 30th Born in Taylorville, IL.

1933 Received a B.S.E.E. from Purdue University

1938 Received a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University.

19431945 Worked on microwave radar at the MIT Radiation Laboratory as part of the war effort.

1952 Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, the eventual basis for MRI.

1997 Mar 7th Died in Cambridge, MA.

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