PHYSICIST

Edward Mills Purcell

1912 - 1997

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Edward Mills Purcell (August 30, 1912 – March 7, 1997) was an American physicist who shared the 1952 Nobel Prize for Physics for his independent discovery (published 1946) of nuclear magnetic resonance in liquids and in solids. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) has become widely used to study the molecular structure of pure materials and the composition of mixtures. Friends and colleagues knew him as Ed Purcell. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Edward Mills Purcell is the 209th most popular physicist (down from 196th in 2019), the 789th most popular biography from United States (down from 751st in 2019) and the 39th most popular American Physicist.

Edward Mills Purcell was most famous for his work in astrophysics. He is best known for his discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which is a remnant of the Big Bang.

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Among PHYSICISTS

Among physicists, Edward Mills Purcell ranks 209 out of 851. Before him are Hugh Everett III, Klaus von Klitzing, Karl Schwarzschild, Maurice Wilkins, Murray Gell-Mann, and Theodor W. Hänsch. After him are James Cronin, Francesco Maria Grimaldi, David Lee, Pyotr Kapitsa, Yoichiro Nambu, and Joseph Rotblat.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1912, Edward Mills Purcell ranks 33. Before him are B. D. Jatti, Hanna Reitsch, Glenn T. Seaborg, Maria Mandl, Roy Sullivan, and Sergiu Celibidache. After him are Tibor Sekelj, Leonid Kantorovich, Adolf Galland, Juan Pujol García, Patrick White, and Julius Axelrod. Among people deceased in 1997, Edward Mills Purcell ranks 31. Before him are Clyde Tombaugh, Isaiah Berlin, Hans Eysenck, Bohumil Hrabal, Roy Lichtenstein, and Fred Zinnemann. After him are Alfred Hershey, Allen Ginsberg, Aldo Rossi, Helenio Herrera, John Eccles, and Chaim Herzog.

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In United States

Among people born in United States, Edward Mills Purcell ranks 789 out of 20,380. Before him are Howard Hawks (1896), James Ivory (1928), Keith Jarrett (1945), Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841), William Alfred Fowler (1911), and Edgar Cayce (1877). After him are James Cronin (1931), Paul D. Boyer (1918), David Lee (1931), James Woods (1947), Theodore Dreiser (1871), and Benedict Arnold (1741).

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Among PHYSICISTS In United States

Among physicists born in United States, Edward Mills Purcell ranks 39. Before him are George Smoot (1945), Val Logsdon Fitch (1923), Hugh David Politzer (1949), Kip Thorne (1940), Hugh Everett III (1930), and Murray Gell-Mann (1929). After him are James Cronin (1931), David Lee (1931), Steven Weinberg (1933), Robert H. Goddard (1882), Melvin Schwartz (1932), and Roy J. Glauber (1925).

American born Physicists

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