Richard R. Ernst
| Richard Ernst | |
|---|---|
Richard R. Ernst in 2009
|
|
| Born | Richard Robert Ernst 14 August 1933 Winterthur, Switzerland |
| Nationality | Swiss |
| Fields | |
| Institutions | |
| Alma mater | ETH Zurich (PhD) |
| Thesis | Kernresonanz-Spektroskopie mit stochastischen Hochfrequenzfeldern (1962) |
| Notable awards |
|
|
Website www |
|
Richard Robert Ernst (born 14 August 1933) is a Swiss physical chemist and Nobel Laureate.
Born in Winterthur, Switzerland, Ernst was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1991 for his contributions towards the development of Fourier transform Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy while at Varian Associates, Palo Alto and the subsequent development of multi-dimensional NMR techniques. These underpin applications to both to chemistry with NMR spectroscopy and to medicine with Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).
Ernst lived in a house that his grandfather, a merchant, had built in 1898. Ernst's father, Robert Ernst, was teaching as an architect at the technical high school of their town. He also had two sisters. His town had a lot of art and industry in it; a lot of the art had to do with music. Winterthur had a small but first-rank orchestra that was famous throughout Switzerland and also an industry in diesel motors and railway engines.
Ernst soon became interested in both sides. Playing the violoncello brought him into numerous chamber and church music ensembles, and stimulated his interest in musical composition that he tried extensively while in high school. At the age of 13, though, Ernst found in his attic a case filled with chemicals, remainders of an uncle who died in 1923 and was, as a metallurgical engineer, interested in chemistry and photography. "I became almost immediately fascinated by the possibilities of trying out all conceivable reactions with them, some leading to explosions, others to unbearable poisoning of the air in our house, frightening my parents." Ernst said but he had survived and started to read all chemistry books that he could get a hand on, first some 19th-century books from his home library that did not provide much reliable information, and then he emptied the rather extensive city library. Soon, though, he knew that he wanted become a chemist, rather than a composer. "I wanted to understand the secrets behind my chemical experiments and behind the processes in nature."
...
Wikipedia