Who is Alexander Pines?
Alexander Pines, Glenn T. Seaborg Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, had a remarkable career as a groundbreaking researcher and beloved teacher, and is widely considered the father of high resolution solid state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. He grew up in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) where his lifelong passion for science was fostered. He studied mathematics and chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1968 and earned his PhD in chemical physics at MIT in 1972. Pines joined the faculty at Berkeley the same year and was awarded tenure just three years later.
Pines' long career is punctuated by achievements previously considered unattainable. Early on, he effectively 'reversed time' by demonstrating a many-body system could be directed backward to an original exactly ordered state with a corresponding reduction in entropy. What, on the surface, seems to be a violation of the second law of thermodynamics, has become one of his most cited works in science, and today forms the basis of much of the research in quantum order and information. Shortly after, he obtained 'impossibly' well-resolved carbon spectrum of a solid sample by transferring signals from abundant 1H atoms to the difficult to detect 13C, thereby launching the modern era of solid-state NMR. In his Berkeley lab, he again transformed NMR with his famous multiple-quantum experiments, now among the most powerful analytical techniques available. He also dramatically expanded the periodic table of NMR accessible nuclei and the application of NMR in semi-ordered phases like liquid crystals. Pines also pioneered the use of hyperpolarized nuclear spins by means of laser-polarized xenon gas, which can act as a spectral beacon that simplifies functional, diagnostic and medical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The endless list of accomplishments throughout his research career includes but is not limited to the introduction of ultralow and zero-field NMR, broadband and adiabatic sech/tanh pulses for applications in MRI, double rotation and dynamic-angle spinning of quadrupolar nuclei, development of novel spin polarization methods including detection of magnetic resonance amplified by means of laser magnetometers, and miniaturization of NMR, including its combination with microfluidic ("lab on a chip") technologies.
Awards for Pines' work include the Wolf Prize for Chemistry, the Langmuir Medal of the American Chemical Society, and the Faraday Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (London) and the Indian Academy of Sciences, and is a former President of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance. A renowned educator, Pines received Berkeley Citation and Distinguished Teaching Award and holds honorary degrees from the Universities of Rome, Paris, Marseilles, Amritsar, and the Weizmann Institute of Science.
This center was established in his honor.
What is NMR?
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance is a technique that uses magnetic fields and electromagnetic frequencies to study the chemical structure and dynamics of solids, liquids, and gases. The nuclear in NMR refers to the nuclei of certain atoms that have a property called spin, meaning they behave like tiny magnets and can thus be studied in the context of other, stronger magnetic fields. The frequencies (the resonance part of NMR) that the molecules emit as they are manipulated are as distinctive as a fingerprint. NMR is a non-invasive technology that has an extraordinary range of applications — in physics, chemistry, materials science, engineering, and biomedicine, with direct implications for its perhaps more widely known related technology, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging).