- Person
- Isidor Isaac Rabi
- Lived
- 1898–1988
- Field
- Physics
- From
- Polish-born American
The story
When Isidor Isaac Rabi measured the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei at Columbia University in the late 1930s, he was doing pure physics. His molecular-beam magnetic resonance method, which won him the 1944 Nobel Prize in Physics, revealed the magnetic moments and spins of nuclei with unprecedented precision. Nobody imagined that the method would one day reach hospitals.
After the war other physicists extended the resonance technique from beams of atoms to liquids and solids, and nuclear magnetic resonance became an important tool for nuclear physics and chemistry, a standard way to work out the structure of molecules. The physics of how nuclei respond to magnetic fields became the foundation for everything that followed.
In the early 1970s researchers began to apply it to medicine. Raymond Damadian, C. F. Hazlewood and D. C. Chang showed that measuring how quickly the magnetic signal from tissue fades could help detect cancer, and in 1973 Paul Lauterbur proposed using a magnetic field gradient to turn the signal into a two-dimensional image. In the late 1970s Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield developed faster imaging techniques, and the two later shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The result was magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, which shows soft tissues such as the brain in fine detail without X-rays or surgery.
Rabi lived to see the connection in the most personal way. In his last days, before he died at home in Manhattan in January 1988, his physicians examined him with an MRI scanner. The machine happened to have a reflective inner surface, and he remarked that he saw himself in it and had never thought his work would come to this. The Atomic Heritage Foundation and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency both credit his research as a foundation of magnetic resonance scanning.
Today MRI is used in hospitals and clinics around the world for diagnosing disease, planning treatment and following patients' progress, and millions of scans are performed every year. Each one rests on the resonance method Rabi's team developed in a Columbia laboratory.
Why it matters
MRI scanners perform millions of scans a year worldwide, helping doctors diagnose cancer, strokes, injuries and many other conditions safely.
About Isidor Isaac Rabi
Galician-born physicist who discovered nuclear magnetic resonance in molecular beams, won the 1944 Nobel Prize, and helped found Brookhaven and CERN, the root of today’s MRI and atomic clocks.
More about Isidor Isaac Rabi
- Rabi helped found Brookhaven National LaboratoryIsidor Isaac Rabi and Norman Ramsey rallied nine universities to found Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, established in 1947.
- Rabi's team found the deuteron is not roundPrecise measurements by Isidor Isaac Rabi's group in the late 1930s showed the deuteron has an electric quadrupole moment, a key clue to the nuclear force.
- Rabi helped create the President's science advisersAfter Sputnik in 1957, Isidor Isaac Rabi's advice to President Eisenhower helped create the President's Science Advisory Committee.
- I. I. Rabi discovered how to make atomic nuclei 'ring'In 1937 Isidor Isaac Rabi's Columbia team invented the molecular-beam magnetic resonance method, winning him the 1944 Nobel Prize in Physics.
- Rabi led research on wartime microwave radarAt MIT's Radiation Laboratory during the Second World War, Isidor Isaac Rabi led research that pushed radar to sharper 3-centimetre wavelengths.
- I. I. Rabi opposed the hydrogen bomb on moral groundsIn 1949 Isidor Isaac Rabi joined Enrico Fermi on the AEC's advisory committee in opposing the hydrogen bomb on moral as well as technical grounds.
- I. I. Rabi planted the idea that became CERNAt a UNESCO meeting in Florence in June 1950, Isidor Isaac Rabi called for regional laboratories to rebuild European science; in 1952 European nations created CERN’s provisional council.
- I. I. Rabi proposed the atomic clock in 1945In a 1945 lecture Isidor Isaac Rabi proposed using the magnetic resonance of atoms to keep time; his colleagues soon built the first atomic clocks.
Sources
- Isidor Isaac Rabi Wikipedia
- Isidor I. Rabi Atomic Heritage Foundation
- Nobel Laureate Physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi Dead at 89 Jewish Telegraphic Agency
- Magnetic resonance imaging Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.