 As a boy , Rabi was interested in science . He read science books borrowed from the public library and built his own radio set . His first scientific paper , on the design of a radio condenser , was published in Modern Electrics when he was in elementary school . After reading about Copernican heliocentrism , he became an atheist . " It 's all very simple " , he told his parents , " who needs God ? " As a compromise with his parents , for his Bar Mitzvah , which was held at home , he gave a speech in Yiddish about how an electric light works . He attended the Manual Training High School in Brooklyn , from which he graduated in 1916 . Later that year , he entered Cornell University as an electrical engineering student , but soon switched to chemistry . After the American entry into World War I in 1917 , he joined the Students Army Training Corps at Cornell . For his senior thesis , he investigated the oxidation states of manganese . He was awarded his Bachelor of Science degree in June 1919 , but since at the time Jews were largely excluded from employment in the chemical industry and academia , he did not receive any job offers . He worked briefly at the Lederle Laboratories , and then as a bookkeeper . 
