“Most new insights come only after a superabundant accumulation of facts have removed the blindness which prevented us from seeing what later comes to be regarded as obvious.” ReasonFactsScienceHistoryLearningSeeingObviousInsightBlindnessAccumulationFree Thought Book:My Life and Times as a Physicist Source: My Life and Times as a Physicist
“We gave you an atomic bomb, what do you want, mermaids ?” WantScienceBombsWant MeYou Want MeAtomic BombMermaidDo You Want Me Author:Isidor Isaac Rabi
“[Science is] a great game. It is inspiring and refreshing. The playing field is the universe itself.” ScienceUniverseGamesFieldsRefreshingPlaying Fields Author:Isidor Isaac Rabi
“My mother made me a scientist without ever intending to. Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school, So? Did you learn anything today? But not my mother. Izzy, she would say, did you ask a good question today? That difference - asking good questions - made me become a scientist.” ChildrenMadeTodaySchoolScienceMotherAsksDifferencesScientistAskingMathematicsEngineeringBrooklynAfter SchoolGreat ScienceGood QuestionsJewish Mother Author:Isidor Isaac Rabi
“Suddenly, there was an enormous flash of light, the brightest light I have ever seen or that I think anyone has ever seen. It blasted; it pounced; it bored its way into you. It was a vision which was seen with more than the eye. It was seen to last forever. You would wish it would stop; altogether it lasted about two seconds.” ThinkingWayTwoLightEyeLastsScienceWishVisionForeverEnormousBoredSecondsFlashAtomic BombAtom Bomb Book:Science: the center of culture Source: Science: the center of culture
“To me, science is an expression of the human spirit, which reaches every sphere of human culture. It gives an aim and meaning to existence as well as a knowledge, understanding, love, and admiration for the world. It gives a deeper meaning to morality and another dimension to esthetics.” WorldGivingHumansWellsScienceSpiritCultureUnderstandingExistenceKnowledgeExpressionMoralityAccountsAimDeeperDimensionsAdmirationSpheresHuman SpiritDeeper MeaningUnderstanding Love Book:A tribute to Professor I.I. Rabi on the occasion of his retirement from Columbia University Source: A tribute to Professor I.I. Rabi on the occasion of his retirement from Columbia University
“Science itself is badly in need of integration and unification. The tendency is more and more the other way ... Only the graduate student, poor beast of burden that he is, can be expected to know a little of each. As the number of physicists increases, each specialty becomes more self-sustaining and self-contained. Such Balkanization carries physics, and indeed, every science further away, from natural philosophy, which, intellectually, is the meaning and goal of science.” KnowsWayNeedsLittlesSelfPhilosophyScienceGoalNaturalPoorNumbersKnowledgeStudentsAccountsIncreaseBurdenIntellectExpectedPhysicsTendenciesBeastCarrieGraduatesIntegrationPhysicistSustainingSpecialtyUnificationGraduate StudentsSelf ContainedNatural PhilosophyBeast Of Burden Author:Isidor Isaac Rabi
“We must also teach science not as the bare body of fact, but more as human endeavor in its historic context-in the context of the effects of scientific thought on every kind of thought. We must teach it as an intellectual pursuit rather than as a body of tricks.” HumansKindFactsBodyScienceTeachHistoryTeachingEffectsIntellectualAccountsPursuitTricksEndeavorHistoric Author:Isidor Isaac Rabi
“As yet, if a man has no feeling for art he is considered narrow-minded, but if he has no feeling for science this is considered quite normal. This is a fundamental weakness.” IfsMenArtFeelingsScienceNormalWeaknessFundamentalsNarrow-minded Author:Isidor Isaac Rabi
“It was eerie. I saw myself in that machine. I never thought my work would come to this. Upon seeing a distorted image of his face, reflected on the inside cylindrical surface of the bore while inside an MRI (magnetic-resonance-imaging) machine-a device made possible by his early physical researches on nuclear magnetic resonance (1938).” MadeFacesScienceSawsSeeingResearchMachinesSurfaceNuclearDevicesBoresBiographiesResonanceMagneticEerieImagingMri Author:Isidor Isaac Rabi
