PROFILE IN THE NEWS
PROFESSOR FOUND PHYSICS MOST DIFFICULT, CHALLENGING

Author: - ROBERT COOKE

Date: Tuesday, October 20, 1981
Page: ?????
Section: RUN OF PAPER

"Scientifically, new ideas, unsolved puzzles he may be able to get his hands on," are the source of excitement for Bloembergen, said Dr. Paul Martin, dean of applied science at Harvard.

Now 61, Bloembergen first came to the United States from The Netherlands in 1946. He received his early training in physics at the University of Utrecht, and later took his PhD at the University of Leiden.

Because of his interest in scientific problems and his work to solve them, Bloembergen was named a co-recipient yesterday of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics. His work produced important developments in the fields of magnetic resonance spectroscopy and lasers.

Bloembergen joined Harvard permanently in 1949, became associate professor in 1951, was named Gordon McKay Professor of Physics in 1957, Rumford Professor of Physics in 1974, and the Gerhard Gade University Professor in 1980.

His wife, Deli Bloembergen, recalled that he "wanted to go to the United States and wrote seeking junior fellowships at Berkeley, the University of Chicago and Harvard. Chicago didn't even reply and Harvard accepted him."

Mrs. Bloembergen, born of Dutch parents in Indonesia, was imprisoned with them when the Japanese took the country in 1942. They were held for three years.

Bloembergen, meanwhile, was a student at the University of Utrecht during the Nazi occupation. He avoided serving in the German Army and forced labor by hiding in his aunt's home, where "there was no heat and very little, if any, food for him," his wife said.

After the war she was sent to study medicine in Holland, where she met Bloembergen.

When she visited him in Cambridge in 1949, she said, "We became engaged in the Eliot House, where he was living, and we were married the following June 26 in Amsterdam." They have three children - Antonia, Brink and Juliana - and celebrated their 31st anniversary this year.

Of his early training, Bloembergen said "I went to a Latin school in Holland, and the emphasis was not on the sciences. I had to learn six languages: native Dutch, Greek, Latin, English, French and German."

When he did get into the study of science, however, "I think I found that physics was one of the most difficult topics and therefore the most challenging to me."

After toying with the idea of going into law, he chose physics and has been experimenting ever since.

"What I've enjoyed since," he said, "is the interaction of theory and experiment, the fascinating versatility of mathematical frameworks to correspond with embodiments in the physical world."

COOKE ;10/19,16:26 LDRISC;10/21,14 B07859814