Isidor Isaac Rabi (born 29.07.1898) is an American physicist, a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1940). He was born in Rymanów (now in the Polish People's Republic). He graduated from Cornell University (1919) and Columbia University. In 1924 — 27 he worked at the City College of New York, in 1929 —67 at Columbia University (as professor from 1937), and in 1940—45 he was deputy director of the Radiation Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
His research concerned magnetism, nuclear physics, the spectroscopy of molecular beams and quantum mechanics. In 1937 he developed the method of magnetic resonance in molecular beams for determining nuclear moments (the Rabi method) and in 1939 carried out precision measurements of the magnetic moments of the proton and the deuteron and of the hyperfine structure of spectra, and detected the quadrupole moment of the deuteron, among other work (Nobel Prize, 1944). He began radio spectroscopy. In 1949 — 53 he developed a radio-frequency resonance method of measuring the dipole moments of molecules and the quadrupole moments of atomic nuclei.
He created a school of physicists. An honorary member of a number of academies of sciences and scientific societies. The N. Bohr Gold Medal (1967), the “Atoms for Peace” medal (1967). In 1950 — 51 he was president of the American Physical Society.