Born in Austria, I. I. Rabi came to the United States with his parents at an early age. He attended Cornell and Columbia Universities, receiving his Ph.D. in physics from the latter in 1927. During a post-doctoral year in Germany Rabi worked with Otto Stern and learned about Stern's experiments (conducted with Walther Gerlach) on the analysis of atomic and molecular structure by means of atomic and molecular beams. Upon his return to the United States in 1929, Rabi worked on methods for extending and refining the Stern-Gerlach techniques. He eventually made a number of important discoveries regarding the magnetic properties of the nucleus and of subatomic particles--discoveries that later found application in a number of fields, including nuclear magnetic resonance, masers and lasers, and time measurement by means of atomic clocks. During World War II, Rabi worked on the development of radar devices and nuclear weapons. At the...