How was NMR discovered?
1 Answer
It's an interesting story.
Explanation:
In the 1930s, Isaac Rabi discovered "nuclear magnetic resonance" when trying to measure the magnetic properties of nuclei like
In 1945, Edward Purcell filled an electromagnetic cavity with solid paraffin and placed the device in an electromagnet.
He irradiated the cavity with a 30 MHz radio frequency and slowly increased the magnetic field strength.
At about 0.7 T, there was a sudden, sharp 20-fold increase in the cavity's absorption of radiation.
This confirmed the predicted nuclear magnetic resonance of hydrogen nuclei and showed that NMR worked in solids.
Also in 1945, Felix Bloch detected the NMR signal in water.
Rabi, Purcell, and Bloch all received Nobel prizes for their accomplishments.
The first commercial NMR spectrometer, the 30 MHz Varian HR-30, came onto market in 1952.
The practice of NMR spectroscopy had begun.
