Felix Bloch was born in April 1905 in Zurich (Switzerland). He attented the "Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule" in Zurich. At first he was studying engineering there, but pretty soon he changed his subject to physics. His diploma thesis was about the Schrödinger Equation. After he received his diploma, he continued to study in Leipzig, at the University of Leipzig. At the University of Leipzig his doctoral advisor was Werner Heisenberg, who was a well-known physicist. It was at the University of Leipzig where Felix Bloch earned his doctorate degree in 1958. His thesis was about the quantum theory of solids. He established the bloch wave with his thesis.

After his doctorate Felix Bloch continued to study with some of the leading physicists in the world. Amongst them was Wolfang Pauli, with whom Felix Bloch studied in Zurich. He also went to Copenhagen, where he studied with Niels Bohr. Niels Bohr won the Noble Prize for Physics in 1922. Another very famous scientist Felix Bloch studied with was Enrico Fermi. Following this time, he went to work in Leipzig as lecturer.

When Hitler came to power in Germany, Felix Bloch immediately left Germany and went to the USA. This was in 1933. In the USA he worked at Stanford University. At Stanford University he worked as a professor for theoretical physics. In 1939 he became a naturalized citizen of the USA. During the Second World War, Felix Bloch worked on the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project was designed to develop the first nuclear bomb. This project would later on lead to the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Following the Manhattan Project, Felix Bloch worked on a Radar Project, at Harvard University. He would continue his studies into the field of nuclear magnetic resonance. In 1946 he developed the Bloch-Equations. These are used in the field of nuclear magnetic resonance, magnetic resonance imaging as well as electron spin resonance.

Consequently Felix Bloch was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1952. He was awarded this prize together with Edward Mills Purcell for "their development of new ways and methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements".
In 1955 Felix Bloch was the first director general of the CERN Institute in Geneva. CERN is the abbreviation for the French synonym for "European Organization for Nuclear Research". In 1961 he was made a Professor for Physics at Stanford University.