Rabi: Scientist and Citizen With a New Preface [Paperback]

John S. Rigden (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674004353 | ISBN-13: 978-0674004351 | Publication Date: December 15, 2001

This is a welcome reissue with a new Preface of John Rigden's stellar biography of I.I. Rabi, one of the most influential physicists of the 20th century. Rabi's discovery of the magnetic resonance method won him the Nobel Prize in 1944 and stimulated research leading to, among other things, refinements in quantum electrodynamics, refined molecular beam methods, radio astronomy with the hydrogen 21-cm line, atomic clocks and solid state lasers.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This biography by the editor of American Review of Physics makes amends for the neglect of a man today esteemed, at 88, as the dean of American physics. Isadore Isaac Rabi rose from Brooklyn-ghetto beginnings to become a key figure among the Americans of the 1920s and '30s who helped shape quantum theory and in doing so made American physics equal to the European scene. Here is a satisfying, sympathetic portrait of a modest, brilliant scientist who regards his calling as "sacred," a religious exploration of "one God," the God being nature. Readers will treasure equally the story of Rabi's molecular-beam experimentswhich earned him the Nobel Prize in 1944and a gallery of revealing glimpses of his scientist friends, chief among them J. Robert Oppenheimer, whose historic role in managing the Manhattan Project overshadowed Rabi's work on radar at MITwhich Rigden pointedly credits with truly winning WW II. Photos.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Rabi's life was remarkable, full of incident, vision and action, including war, hot and cold. The biography is a masterpiece, rich in anecdote and never losing the narrative drive. (New Scientist 20001216)

John Rigden's biography of Isidor Rabi, the American physicist and Nobel prizewinner--for the development of nuclear magnetic resonance--and eventually 'statesman' of science, has been reissued in paperback. Rabi's life was remarkable, full of incident, vision and action, including war, hot and cold. The biography is a masterpiece, rich in anecdote and never losing the narrative drive. (New Scientist )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (December 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674004353
• ISBN-13: 978-0674004351
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,074,868 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good ,well reseached biography, March 1, 2008

By 

R. Bagula "Roger L. Bagula" (Lakeside, Ca United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rabi: Scientist and Citizen (Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Series) (Paperback)

My Life and Times as a Physicist is an autobiographical link. I would rate this higher as the research is very good and well footnoted, but I feel the work Dr. Rabi did is not well represented using words alone as so much of it involves quantum mechanical equations and field equations. He can say it was difficult to believe the magnetic moment of the proton in words all he likes, but that until we associated the proton with the Gell-Mann quark group SU(3) or Cartan A_2 in the 60's, we just had no real idea of why?! Dr. Rabi wasn't named among the Los Alamos scientists, but was there as Oppenheimer's true friend.
In point of fact Mathematical Physics loses a lot when the mathematics is left out.