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Article: THE AMERICAN CENTURY: Art & Culture 1900-1950.(various artists, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York)
- Article from:
- The Nation
- Article date:
- June 7, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 The Nation Company L.P. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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One afternoon in 1985, I rode in a taxi down Broadway with the physicist I.I. Rabi, discussing time and age. Rabi told me he was 88- "as old as the century." "Rabi," I murmured, "your computational powers appear to be waning." He responded sharply: "The twentieth century began with the
discovery of the electron by J.J. Thomson, in 1897." In view of Rabi's immense scientific contribution-he won the Nobel Prize for his work on nuclear magnetic resonance in molecular beams and trained far more Nobel laureates in physics than anyone else-it was entirely understandable that he should identify his birthdate with that of modern physics. And Rabi chided me for supposing ...