In 1945, mathematician John von Neumann, working at the University of Pennsylvania, established the von Neumann architecture, the computer design principle that separates memory from processing and became the foundation for how modern computers are built. That same year, Felix Bloch at Stanford and Edward Purcell at Harvard independently discovered nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) in bulk liquids and solids, a technique for non-destructive analysis of materials that later enabled MRI, work for which they shared the 1952 Nobel Prize.
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Bloch and Purcell made their NMR discoveries independently rather than collaboratively, working at different institutions.
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Von Neumann developed the architecture while at the University of Pennsylvania, not at Princeton or Los Alamos where he is more commonly associated.
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1:06:53This is all so incredible. 1945, invention of the vonoyman architecture. We talk about the Vonoyman architecture a lot on this podcast. The Vonoyman architecture is this idea that your memory and your processing are separate. This became the bedrock for how modern computers are made. Um, and it was established by mathematician John vonoman while he was at the University of Pennsylvania. >> Also on our Oppenheimer list. >> Yes. No. No, he's not. Because >> because >> very controversially. >> Yes. Yes. >> Um, Christopher Nolan did not include >> John von Noman, which I think is crazy. >> Crazy. That's that's exactly what it is. Yeah. 1945 discovery of NMR in condensed
1:07:36matter. >> Yes. So this is Felix Block and Edward Pcell. They were at Stanford and Harvard respectively. They independently discovered nuclear magnetic resonance in bulk liquids and solids. And this paves the way for non-destructive analysis of materials like MRIs, magnetic resonance imaging. They won the Nobel Prize in 1952.