The American physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi (1898-1988) pioneered in the development of precision atomic- and nuclear-beam measurements.

Isidor Rabi was born on July 29, 1898, in Rymanov in what was then Austria-Hungary. As an infant, he was brought to the United States, where his father engaged in the real estate business in New York City. Rabi attended Cornell University (1916-1919), obtaining a bachelor's degree in chemistry. Deciding to pursue graduate study in physics, he returned to Cornell (1922-1923) and then transferred to Columbia University, where in 1927 he obtained his doctoral degree. In 1926 he married Helen Newmark. The couple had two daughters.

Rabi studied in Europe (1927-1929), working with some of the most outstanding physicists. Otto Stern, with whom he remained for about a year, made the deepest impression on Rabi.

Work on Atomic and Molecular Beams

Immediately on his return to the United States, where he had accepted a position...