 In 1929 Rabi returned to the United States , where Columbia offered him a faculty position . In collaboration with Gregory Breit , he developed the Breit @-@ Rabi equation and predicted that the Stern – Gerlach experiment could be modified to confirm the properties of the atomic nucleus . His techniques for using nuclear magnetic resonance to discern the magnetic moment and nuclear spin of atoms earned him a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1944 . Nuclear magnetic resonance became an important tool for nuclear physics and chemistry . The subsequent development of magnetic resonance imaging from it has made it important to medicine as well . 
