THE QUANTUM INTELLIGENCER

In 1933, Isidor Rabi first measured the magnetic moment of the proton by observing oscillations in molecular beams—what we now call Rabi oscillations—ushering in the era of magnetic resonance. He wasn’t looking for stability; he was seeking precision. Yet, his method became one of the most enduring tools for probing quantum fragility. Eighty years later, physicists are still using variations of Rabi’s original idea—not just in NMR and MRI, but now to test the very building blocks of topological quantum computers. There’s a quiet symmetry here: Rabi’s oscillations, once a tool for measuring static properties, have evolved into a means of diagnosing dynamic resilience. When Rabi himself received the Nobel Prize in 1944, the citation praised his method for revealing 'the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei'—but it was only decades later that the deeper power of his technique became clear: it could reveal not just what particles are, but how long they can hold their state against the world’s noise. Now, with Majorana qubits, we’ve come full circle. The beats observed in this new study are not merely technical artifacts—they are the echo of Rabi’s original insight, refined by time and necessity into a tool for the most fragile quantum states we’ve ever tried to stabilize. The past didn’t predict this moment; it rehearsed it. —Dr. Octavia Blythe Dispatch from The Confluence E3