The crucial role of scanning tunneling microscopy for our understanding of the material world, and its immanent significance for the future of scientific research and technical progress, has been duly appreciated by the awarding of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics to its developers Gerd Binning and Heinrich Rohrer. It represented the latest stage in the series of developments of microscopies not based on light, which started with the development of the electron microscope by Ernst Ruska.

Gerd Binnig was born in Frankfurt, W. Germany on 7/20/47. Gerd' interest in physics started at an early age of ten. He began his studying of physics in Frankfurt where he attended two colleges. Gerd began losing his interest in physics to his hobby of music.

In 1978 Gerd accepted a job offer from IBM Zurich Research Laboratory to join a physics research team. Here he met Heinrich Rohner who restored his curiosity in physics with his sense of humor and humanity. This is where his "exciting" years of research on STM began.

Gerd worked on the research team with Heinrich Rohner, Christoph Gerber, and Edmund Weibel. They were awarded the German Physics Prize, the Otto Klung Prize, the Hewlett Packard Prize, the King Faisal Prize and now the Nobel Prize for Physics.

Heinrich Rohner was born in Buchs, St. Gallen, Switzerland on 6/6/33.In 1949 Heinrich's family moved to Zurich where he would soon begin his accidental interest in physics. Rohner's main interests were in languages and natural sciences.Registering at the ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) in 1951 began his interest in physics for the first time.

Rohner began his Ph.D. thesis in superconductors at the magentic-field-induced superconducting transition.In the summer of 1963, Professor Ambros Speiser, Director of the newly founded IBM Research Laboratory in Ruschilkon, Switzerland, made Rohner an offer to join a physics research team. Rohner accepted this offer in December of 1963 where he met Gerd Binnig and began his research on STM.