Isidor Isaac Rabi
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Isidor Isaac Rabi (July 29, 1898 – January 11, 1988) was an American physicist of Austro-Hungarian origin.
Rabi was born in Rymanów, Galicia, Austria, (now in Poland), and was brought to the United States as a child the following year. He achieved a Bachelor of Chemistry degree from Cornell University in 1919, continuing his studies at Columbia University and received his Ph.D. in 1927. A fellowship enabled him to spend the next two years in Europe working with such eminent physicists at Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli and Otto Stern. He then joined the Columbia faculty and never left.
In 1930 Rabi conducted investigations into the nature of the force binding protons to atomic nuclei. This research eventually led to the creation of the molecular-beam magnetic-resonance detection method, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1944.
In 1940 he was granted leave from Columbia to work as Associate Director of the Radiation Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the development of radar. He reluctantly agreed to serve as a visiting consultant who would come and go from Los Alamos, where he was one of the very few exceptions to the strict security rules there. General Groves made a special effort to bring Rabi, who had been a student with Oppenheimer and maintained a close and mutually respectful relationship, out to Los Alamos for the days leading up to the Trinity test so that he could help Oppenheimer maintain his sanity under such intense pressure.
After the war he continued his research, which contributed to the inventions of the laser and the atomic clock. He was also one of the founders of Brookhaven National Laboratory and the organization known as CERN.
Rabi chaired Columbia's physics department from 1945 to 1949, a period during which it was home to two Nobel Laureates (Rabi and Enrico Fermi) and eleven future laureates, including seven faculty (Polykarp Kusch, Willis Lamb, Maria Goeppert-Mayer, James Rainwater, Norman Ramsey, Charles Townes and Hideki Yukawa), a research scientist (Aage Bohr), a visiting professor (Hans Bethe), a doctoral student and an undergrad (Leon Cooper). When Columbia created the rank of University Professor in 1964, Rabi was the first to receive such a chair. He retired from teaching in 1967 but remained active in the department and held the title of University Professor Emeritus and Special Lecturer until his death on January 11, 1988.
He famously remarked that "the world would be better without an Edward Teller."
References
- Rabi, scientist and citizen by John S. Rigden (Sloan Foundation Series; Basic Books, 1987). A biography that is close to an autobiography, as it was based on extensive interviews with Rabi.
See also
- Atomic clock
- Nuclear magnetic resonance
- Rabi cycle
- Radiation Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
External links
- [Isidor Isaac Rabi]
- [Rabi biography]
- [Nobel winners associated with Columbia physics department]
- [Annotated bibliography for Isidor Isaac Rabi from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues]
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