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
_______________________________ 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
_____________________________ 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
___________________________ 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