Origins & Early Life

Gerd Karl Binnig (German pronunciation: [ˈɡɛʁt ˈbɪnɪç] ; born 20 July 1947) is a German physicist. He is most famous for having won the Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Heinrich Rohrer in 1986 for the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope. Binnig was born in Frankfurt am Main and played in the ruins of the city during his childhood. His family lived partly in Frankfurt and partly in Offenbach am Main, and he attended school in both cities.

Pivotal Works & Achievements

At the age of 10, he decided to become a physicist, but he soon wondered whether he had made the right choice. He concentrated more on music, playing in a band. He also started playing the violin at 15 and played in his school orchestra. Binnig studied physics at the Goethe University Frankfurt, gaining a bachelor's degree in 1973 and remaining there to do a PhD within Werner Martienssen's group, supervised by Eckhardt Hoenig. He received his PhD in 1978.

Enduring Legacy & Impact

In 1978, Binnig accepted an offer from IBM to join their Zurich research group, where he worked with Heinrich Rohrer, Christoph Gerber and Edmund Weibel. There they developed the scanning tunneling microscope (STM), an instrument for imaging...

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