Isidor Isaac Rabi

Isidor Isaac Rabi was an American physicist and Nobel laureate, recognized in 1944 for his discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance, which is used in magnetic resonance imaging. He was also one of the first scientists in the US to work on the cavity magnetron, which is used in microwave radar and microwave ovens.

Israel Isaac Rabi was born onJuly 1898 into a PolishJewish Orthodox family in Rymanw, Galicia, in what was then part of AustriaHungary but is now Poland. Soon after he was born, his father, David Rabi, emigrated to the United States. The younger Rabi and his mother, Sheindel, joined David there a few months later, and the family moved into a tworoom apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. At home the family spoke Yiddish. When Rabi was enrolled in school, Sheindel said his name was Izzy, and a school official, thinking it was short for Isidor, put that down as his name. Henceforth, that became his official name. Later, in response to antiSemitism, he started writing his name as Isidor Isaac Rabi, and was known professionally as I.I. Rabi. To most of his friends and family, including his sister Gertrude, who was born in 1903, he was known simply as Rabi, which was pronounced Robby. In 1907, the family moved to Brownsville, Brooklyn, where they ran a grocery store.

Source: Wikipedia