Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–122
just did not believe it. He didn’t believe I knew, because the controls on that thing are very, very
tight. But I knew I knew. I interpreted something that was a hint dropped deliberately,
accidentally, I don’t know. But the name was never mentioned. It was a small detective story
that I interpreted correctly. David didn’t believe it, but I knew it was going to happen.
So there I am on the day; I’m riding in a car. Someone had arranged for me to be driven
from Cambridge, U.K., where Schlumberger has one lab, to Abingdon, where they have another.
In the middle of this, a phone call comes through to this car, from Bob O’Rourke, who was
running public relations at Caltech. O’Rourke is furious at Politzer. I said, “Well. You know
he’s the one who’s won the prize, and he can decide what he does. It’s his call. It’s not your
call, Bob. It’s not my call.” I said, “I’ve left you covered. If I had not left you covered with
plenty of written stuff you can hand out, and a perfectly adequate, very interesting speaker
named John Preskill, then you’d have reason to complain. But you don’t have any reason to
complain. Politzer won. If he decides he doesn’t want to be part of this right now, that’s his
call.” He was not happy. Jane Dietrich, one of your colleagues [editor of E&S magazine, 1986-
2004], was very unhappy with Politzer and was, I thought, negative about it. I tried to tell her
she was off base. She hadn’t won the prize. There was no reason Politzer couldn’t do exactly
what he wanted, having won the prize. He’s a nice person. He’s done an enormous number of
things for the students, particularly the students of Caltech. And for Caltech. And, by God, he
won the Nobel Prize—hey, let him call it any way he likes. I said I would be willing to bet I
could get him to come to a celebration of this prize, and he did. Everybody said, “You guys have
a lot of fun.” We made up songs. Politzer played the banjo. Preskill and I talked. It turned out
to be a real love-in for Politzer, and he deserved it.
ASPATURIAN: At the press conference, though, Mark Wise [McCone Professor of High Energy
Physics] ended up doing the honors, not John Preskill. What happened?
TOMBRELLO: I don’t know, because I was in the U.K. But Preskill had written enough stuff that
Mark Wise could pick it up and take it. We were covered no matter who stepped up to do it.
Politzer wasn’t answering the phone for a few days. But I was amazed at the reaction and how
people got upset with him about it. It’s his Nobel Prize. He can do what he wants. It’s clear he
deserved it.
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