The Rabi School

Abstract

The article discusses the School of Physicsestablished by the late I I Rabi. Rabi was an unusuallyeffective physicist not only through his own work and thatof his students but also through his general wisdom andinfluence on others. Rabi's early life and education arebriefly described including his travels in Europe and hisearly work with Otto Stern at Hamburg. At ColumbiaUniversity Rabi established the molecular beam researchlaboratory where he invented the highly successfulmolecular beam magnetic resonance method, which heand his associates used to measure nuclear and magneticproperties of many molecules and nuclei, and where hetrained students who later became leaders in physics.During World War I1 Rabi was Deputy Director of theMIT Radiation Laboratory where many of the advancesin radar and microwave electronics were made as well asbeing a consultant to Robert Oppenheimer, the Directorat Los Alamos. Following the war Rabi played majorroles in establishing the Columbia physics departmentas a great research centre, in the efforts to provideinternational control of atomic energy, in the formation ofthe US President's Science Advisory Committee, in theInternational Conferences on the Peaceful Uses of AtomicEnergy, in the establishment of Brookhaven NationalLaboratory and of CERN and in the NATO ScienceCommittee.