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, Nobel laureate
Isidor Isaac Rabi, Nobel laureate
Quoted by Noah on February 7 2013. There are 11 comments.
GeeIWonder 07 Feb 13
Where is this quote from?
I ask in particular because there’s some qualification in that statement that seems superfluous and as though it may well have been re-voiced with particular notes emphasized.
NL 07 Feb 13
@GeeIWonder – it’s generally attributed to an article in the September 1993 issue of Parents Magazine entitled “Great minds start with questions”. Many online sources cite it with the same phrasing as coming from that article, though I will admit that I’m having a hard time finding a copy of the original article.
Ed 07 Feb 13
It’s not particularly a great question, but shouldn’t there be an opening speech mark before “did you…”? Still, I love these little snippets and thought-provoking quotes. Keep them coming!
GeeIWonder 07 Feb 13
Thanks Noah for your efforts. Could easily have been an interview Q/A. If I track it down this weekend I’ll post here.
Anyhow, great sentiment.
GeeIWonder 07 Feb 13
Not as folksy or as brief, but more authoritative: http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/4836.html and gives some pretty detailed account about his early years and schooling and family and thinking.
If the quote was accurate, I’d expect to see some version of it here, personally. In fact there’s elements to the contrary (e.g. ‘practically no contact’ etc.). Someone may have taken liberties along the way.
GeeIWonder 07 Feb 13
Could be the original source: http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/19/opinion/l-izzy-did-you-ask-a-good-question-today-712388.html
Kudos to Don Scheff.
I’ll take Dr. Rabi’s words over the apocryphal story though.
raster12 07 Feb 13
you need permission to put this on a commercial blog I think?
Anonymous Coward 13 Feb 13
I can tell you definitively that the quote is from the acceptance speech that Rabi gave in Stockholm for the Prize. I have an old bound volume of all the Nobel Lectures, and it’s in there.
GeeIWonder 13 Feb 13
The official website of the Nobel prizes would presumably very much value your copy of this lecture:
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1944/rabi-lecture.html
GeeIWonder 13 Feb 13
.,, and the speech that WAS given:
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1944/press.html
This has all the hallmarks of an apocryphal story. Worse, it SEEMS to directly contradict factual anecdotes, views, and words that Rabi actually did share (see above).
I would love to stand corrected on this, but nothing here or elsewhere that has been cited here does that, and a 5 min search provided all the evidence to the contrary. Surely the onus is on those making the claim he actually did say it?
GeeIWonder 13 Feb 13
(Seriously though, scanning up the speech you’re thinking of/looking at and posting the text somewhere would be cool)
This discussion is closed.