Isidor Isaac Rabi Quotes

13 Sourced Quotes

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.

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.

Isidor Isaac Rabi
Scientific understanding is an essential step to our finding a home for ourselves in the universe. Through understanding the universe, we become at home in it. In a certain sense we have made this universe out of human concepts and human discoveries. It ceases to be a lonely place, because we can to some extent actually navigate in it.

Isidor Isaac Rabi
I think physicists are the Peter Pans of the human race. They never grow up, and they keep their curiosity.

Isidor Isaac Rabi
The essence of the scientific spirit is to use the past only as a springboard to the future.

Isidor Isaac Rabi
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.

Isidor Isaac Rabi
The scientist does not defy the universe. He accepts it. It is his dish to savor, his realm to explore; it is his adventure and never-ending delight. It is complaisant and elusive but never dull. It is wonderful both in the small and in the large. In short, its exploration is the highest occupation for a gentleman.

Isidor Isaac Rabi
With the beginning of direct exploration of the solar system and promise; in fact science derives it sustenance from the unknown; all the good things have come from that inexhaustible realm.

Isidor Isaac Rabi
Science is a great game. It is inspiring and refreshing. The playing field is the universe itself.

Isidor Isaac Rabi
We are the inheritors of a great scientific tradition and of a beautiful structure of knowledge. It is the duty of our generation to add to the perfection of this structure and to pass on to the next generation the best traditions of our science for the edification and entertainment of all mankind.

Isidor Isaac Rabi
There isn't a scientific community. It is a culture. It is a very undisciplined organization.

Isidor Isaac Rabi
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.

Isidor Isaac Rabi
I think physics is infinite. You don't have to try to exhaust it in your generation, or in your lifetime.

Isidor Isaac Rabi