Isidor Isaac Rabi (1898–1988) was an American physicist and Nobel
laureate. Born on 29 July 1898 into a traditional Jewish family in what
was then part of Austria-Hungary, Rabi came to the United States as a
baby and was raised in New York's Lower East Side. In collaboration with
Gregory Breit, he developed the Breit-Rabi equation, and predicted that
the Stern–Gerlach experiment could be modified to confirm the
properties of the atomic nucleus. During World War II he worked on radar
at the MIT Radiation Laboratory, and on the Manhattan Project. He was
awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1944 for his discovery of nuclear
magnetic resonance, used in spectroscopy and imaging. He was also one of
the first scientists in the US to work on the cavity magnetron, a key
component in microwave radar and microwave ovens. After the war, he
served on the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy
Commission, and was its chairman from 1952 to 1956. He was Science
Advisor to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and was involved in the
creation of the Brookhaven National Laboratory (1947) and CERN (1954).
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isidor_Isaac_Rabi>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1148:
The Siege of Damascus ended in a decisive crusader defeat,
leading to the disintegration of the Second Crusade.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Damascus_(1148)>
1836:
The Arc de Triomphe in Paris, commemorating those who fought
and died for France in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars,
was formally inaugurated.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_de_Triomphe>
1914:
Connecting Cape Cod Bay and Buzzards Bay in the U.S. state of
Massachusetts, the Cape Cod Canal opened on a limited basis.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Cod_Canal>
1987:
Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President J.
R. Jayewardene signed the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord in an ultimately
unsuccessful attempt to resolve the ongoing Sri Lankan Civil War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Sri_Lanka_Accord>
2010:
An overloaded passenger ferry capsized on the Kasai River in
Bandundu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, resulting in at
least 80 deaths.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasai_River_disaster>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
tertiary:
1. Of third rank or order; subsequent.
2. (chemistry) Possessing some quality in the third degree; especially
having been subjected to the substitution of three atoms or radicals.
3. (ornithology) Of quills: growing on the innermost joint of a bird's
wing; tertial.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tertiary>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
I have many names, and none of them matter. … Names are not
important ... To speak is to name names, but to speak is not important.
A thing happens once that has never happened before. Seeing it, a man
looks upon reality. He cannot tell others what he has seen. Others wish
to know, however, so they question him saying, "What is it like, this
thing you have seen?" So he tries to tell them. Perhaps he has seen the
very first fire in the world. He tells them, "It is red, like a poppy,
but through it dance other colors. It has no form, like water, flowing
everywhere. It is warm, like the sun of summer, only warmer. It exists
for a time upon a piece of wood, and then the wood is gone, as though it
were eaten, leaving behind that which is black and can be sifted like
sand. When the wood is gone, it too is gone." Therefore, the hearers
must think reality is like a poppy, like water, like the sun, like that
which eats and excretes. They think it is like to anything that they are
told it is like by the man who has known it. But they have not looked
upon fire. They cannot really know it. They can only know of it. But
fire comes again into the world, many times.
--Lord of Light
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lord_of_Light>