NMR MUSEUM


This "NMR Museum" has been established to preserve several old photographs from the history of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) at the Institute of Scientific Instruments. These photographs are too modest and incomplete to pay tribute to the early pioneers and achievements of NMR in our Institute - which is actually the beginning of NMR instruments development in former Czechoslovakia. Efforts are underway to prepare a more complete historical collection, inluding also a written history of NMR in our Institute.

An extraordinarily gifted electrical engineer and physicist Josef Dadok initiated the research of microwave spectroscopy since 1954 and later fully switched to NMR around 1957. By that time, a predecessor of our Institute was called "The Developmental Workshops of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences".

All this happened in times when only Varian company in the USA was offering NMR instruments - however under a strict embargo for the countries beyond the Iron Curtain ...

Acknowledgment: For most of the historical photos below and their dating, the author is greatly indebted to Ing. Oldrich Chramosta.


Click on the pictures below to get their larger and nicer version.

dadok3.gif 1960

Ing. Josef Dadok, the founder and leading spirit of the early NMR at the Institute and in Czechoslovakia ...

This pictute was taken on September 21, 1960.

dadok1.gif 1960

Ing. Josef Dadok (right), Ing. Oldrich Chramosta (left), and the technician R. Pospisil (middle).

The picture taken on September 21, 1960. A discussion before transporting a historical CW-NMR Spectrometer (30 MHz) from our Institute to the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry in Praha ...

dadok2.gif 1960

J. Dadok (right), O. Chramosta (left), R. Pospisil (left)

The picture taken on September 21, 1960. Ing. Oldrich Chramosta soon become the key-specialist in the development of resistive magnets for NMR ...

cw61a.gif 1961

The second CW-NMR Spectrometer developed at the Institute of Scientific Instruments ...

Resonant frequency 40 MHz.

cw61.gif 1961

Another picture of the second CW-NMR Spectrometer (40 MHz) in our Institute ...

staff64.gif 1964

Sitting (left): O. Chramosta, M. Konzbulova.
Stading (left): J. Sup, R. Pospisil, O. Gladysz, Partyka, Peprla.

August 1964: CW NMR Spectrometer 60 MHz just put into operation ...


Ing. Josef Dadok is not present - maybe taking a rest after submitting his (still useful!) CSc-Thesis "Mezni citlivost a rozlisovaci schopnost NMR spektrometru" in August 1963 ...

posp64.gif 1964-65

A CW-NMR spectrum produced by the historical 60 MHz instrument ...


... and the technician R. Pospisil .

cw67.gif 1967

CW NMR Spectrometer 80 MHz ...


That time, a bit more freedom was in the air, and Ing. Dadok, CSc., left for a visiting fellowship in the USA in the fall '67 ... Later he become the Professor at Mellon Carnegie University in Pittsburgh, USA.

staff67.gif 1967

Sveda, Machacek, Vdolecek,
... Sup, Chramosta, Gladysz,
....... Hradil, Klvac, Pospisil.

... and CW-NMR Spectrometer 80 MHz. Ing. Karel Sveda became the head of the NMR department in the uneasy years 67-76 ...

ftnmr79.gif 1979

The pulse FT NMR Spectrometer 80 MHz at Incheba exhibition in Bratislava.

Here still with a resistive magnet, though some Nb-Ti superconductive magnets for NMR had been successfully developed at the Institute since mid-seventies ...

m86.gif 1986

One of the very last resistive magnets (80 MHz for a FT-NMR Spectrometer) co-developed by Ing. O. Chramosta et al.

The pic' was made for a (successful) State Price submission. It actually closes the long history of resistive magnets for NMR at our Institute ...

divers More historical pictures to come ...

We have yet a collection of our historical magnets (both resistive and superconductive), some old CW-spectra, and several pics of our older stuff ...
Locals - if you discover some pictures from the history of NMR in our Institute - please don't hesitate co contribute to this NMR-Museum. Thank you!




The pictures are copyrighted and cannot be freely used without a written permission of the owner of this Web-site.



Version October 16, 1998