July 29, 1898 – Birth of Isidor Isaac Rabi, Nobel Prize winner who laid the foundations for lasers, masers, atomic clocks, and magnetic resonance

In 1919 he graduated in Chemistry from Cornell University and, in 1927, obtained his doctorate from Columbia University for a thesis on the magnetic properties of crystals.

At the beginning of the 1930s, he began to practice his profession in the field of Nuclear Physics through a research project related to the effects of magnetic fields on the nucleus of particles, devising a magnetic resonance method. that allowed the study of the magnetic properties and the internal structure of molecules, atoms and nuclei. From these studies it was possible to develop applications such as the laser, the maser, the atomic clock or the magnetic resonance used in medical diagnoses.

Together with Otto Stern, they developed new methods of observing spectra based on atomic magnetic resonance and molecular beams that paved the way for accurately determining the magnetic properties of molecules or atomic nuclei, calculating the magnetic moment of the electron, and proving the power of the theory of quantum electrodynamics.

Rabi improved the method by increasing the accuracy of the measurements by a factor of 100 and discovered that the magnetic moments of atoms are due to the spins in the orbits and/or proper rotations (spin) of the electrons surrounding the atomic nuclei.

In 1944 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the resonance method thanks to which it is possible to verify the record of the magnetic properties of atoms.

If you want to know more about this scientist, click on the following link: Isidor Isaac Rabi