[BC] Re: So how did we miss this one?

[PeterH5322]

>When in the USAF eons ago I worked for one of the "imported" German 
>scientists.  He pointed out that the US chose 24 GHz for a radar band 
>not realizing it was a water-absorption frequency. Range was POOR.  He 
>said the Germans knew about the water problem, but couldn't make 
>reliable equipment nearly that high in frequency.

Silly German scientists.

Lost out on perhaps an even more significant discovery than RADAR itself.

As certain RADAR frequencies do indeed affect water molecules, this 
observation, made by I.I. Rabi at the MIT "Radiation Lab", lead directly 
to the discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and, later, to 
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

It is no accident that before 1936 most Nobels went to German scientists, 
whereas after 1936 most Nobels went to American scientists.

The Nobel Prize in Physics 1944 ... "for his resonance method for 
recording the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei"

<http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1944/index.html>