Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

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Tombrello–142 TOMBRELLO: I said, “I know what the Russians tested, that first mysterious test.” Then I just grabbed my drink and disappeared. Christy followed me like a bloodhound. Found me and cornered me in one of the rooms and said, “All right. What did they test?” I said, “They tested Teller’s Clock.” He says, “Oh, my God! That’s what it was.” Because it was a mystery test. It didn’t look like the thermonuclear weapons that the U.S. had just tested. It looked different, but it was obviously thermonuclear. Teller had this design. It was as big as a whale, and it would never get more than 400 kilotons. It was the only part of his research sort of publicly out— people at Los Alamos knew about it and Fuchs was still around. ASPATURIAN: Klaus Fuchs, the British spy. TOMBRELLO: And the U.S. wouldn’t build it, because, as Oppenheimer always said, “Inelegant. It doesn’t scale. It’s as big as a railroad car.” But the Russians built it and tested it. And it was Teller’s Clock. It was just an eye-opener to Christy. “Of course that’s what it was!” I said, “Yup, that’s what it was. It was the Clock.” The “clock” comes from the way that Teller had described it—an alarm clock to wake up Joe Stalin. The classical Super was something different. The story of that is all kind of mixed up. How did the Russians get it? Was Sakharov [Andrei Sakharov, father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb] really that smart that he duplicated it? Even though they claim that they didn’t analyze fallout because they inadvertently threw the samples away, I still think that the Russians figured out how the Super worked by analyzing the fallout from the U.S. test. Because once you see that—if you’ve got really smart people like Sakharov—you can back-engineer it. But the Russians claimed no. So that was an interesting Christmas party at the president’s house. Then we put together this LIGO advisory committee. Then we ended up in Washington, having to replace Robbie and that’s how Barish got picked. It was all a bit of serendipity, because the SSC had been canceled. This big detector that Barish was responsible for was not going to get built, because there wasn’t going to be an accelerator, and Barish was available. The rest is history. I’ll have to tell the story about Robbie, about Barclay’s firing. That occurred probably just after I had come back from Schlumberger, in the spring of ’89. Barclay had been fired. He and Linda threw a party for the people that had basically expressed their dismay. http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechOH:OH_Tombrello_T
Tombrello–143 ASPATURIAN: Now, was he let go by Everhart or was it by the trustees? TOMBRELLO: Everhart. There were a lot of people campaigning for the job, but it ended up, I think after maybe one false start, with Jennings, who was a good choice. Jennings is very sound, very smart. He could work things through. I adore Paul Jennings. I’m going to jump ahead and talk a little about how clever Jennings was and how sound he was. I was PMA division chair, and I had gotten a number of endowed chairs for people in the division. [PORTION TEMPORARILY CLOSED, pages 143-144.] http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechOH:OH_Tombrello_T
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THOMAS A. TOMBRELLO (b. 1936) INTER
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Contact information Archives, Calif
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NOTE TO READERS Per agreement betwe
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Tombrello-iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTE
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Tombrello-vi Session 4 68-72 Colleg
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Tombrello-viii his presidency. Tomb
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Tombrello-x 206-213 Establishes (wi
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CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
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Tombrello-3 TOMBRELLO: Bisacquino.
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Tombrello-5 TOMBRELLO: This proceed
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Tombrello-7 Memphis, and I believe
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Tombrello-9 otherwise, we mostly we
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Tombrello-11 of the ability of the
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Tombrello-13 truly bigger than life
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Tombrello-15 I associated with the
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Tombrello-17 they’re probably rig
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Tombrello-19 ASPATURIAN: Your thesi
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Tombrello-21 wonderful time. And yo
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Tombrello-23 TOMBRELLO: Let me go o
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Tombrello-25 ASPATURIAN: When you s
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Tombrello-27 We did that again in t
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Tombrello-29 funding our research t
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Tombrello-31 from the NSF grant, bu
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Tombrello-33 doing great stuff, bec
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Tombrello-35 TOMBRELLO: I wasn’t
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Tombrello-37 [Morrisroe Professor o
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Tombrello-39 clearly willing to pay
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Tombrello-41 my teaching assignment
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Tombrello-43 ASPATURIAN: No. TOMBRE
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Tombrello-45 Charlie, that’s numb
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Tombrello-47 heavy ions. Jancaitis
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Tombrello-49 because, no surprise,
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Tombrello-51 of a wreck somewhere.
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Tombrello-53 concurrent computers,
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Tombrello-55 your green card.” He
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Tombrello-57 USC. She said, “My n
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Tombrello-59 video of it. Brian was
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Tombrello-61 ASPATURIAN: Without th
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Tombrello-63 ASPATURIAN: Consciousn
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Tombrello-65 Stone reported this co
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Tombrello-67 says, “That is so im
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Tombrello-69 basement was where I l
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Tombrello-71 Graaff generators] at
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Tombrello-73 groups at Chicago, and
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Tombrello-75 TOMBRELLO: I think it
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Tombrello-77 TOMBRELLO: Yes. I reme
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Tombrello-79 TOMBRELLO: Well, it wa
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Tombrello-81 were made up of these
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Tombrello-83 TOMBRELLO: It had a re
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Tombrello-85 ASPATURIAN: It wasn’
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Tombrello-87 Remington bronzes but
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Tombrello-89 He’d done all kinds
Page 105 and 106: Tombrello-91 side, with totally ira
Page 107 and 108: Tombrello-93 TOMBRELLO: Yes. It too
Page 109 and 110: Tombrello-95 wouldn’t have asked
Page 111 and 112: Tombrello-97 U.S. independent of fo
Page 113 and 114: Tombrello-99 own operating people a
Page 115 and 116: Tombrello-101 particularly in compa
Page 117 and 118: Tombrello-103 Six months later, “
Page 119 and 120: Tombrello-105 necessary—that was
Page 121 and 122: Tombrello-107 make things harder. A
Page 123 and 124: Tombrello-109 TOMBRELLO: It really
Page 125 and 126: Tombrello-111 it. It was clearly an
Page 127 and 128: Tombrello-113 little bit—he had h
Page 129 and 130: Tombrello-115 protons, you didn’t
Page 131 and 132: Tombrello-117 Did she have an affai
Page 133 and 134: Tombrello-119 questions. But Murray
Page 135 and 136: Tombrello-121 marvelous teacher—h
Page 137 and 138: Tombrello-123 ASPATURIAN: What I ha
Page 139 and 140: Tombrello-125 ASPATURIAN: That woul
Page 141 and 142: Tombrello-127 and all sorts of thin
Page 143 and 144: Tombrello-129 ASPATURIAN: Someone e
Page 145 and 146: Tombrello-131 DuBridge interpreted
Page 147 and 148: Tombrello-133 sciences. They were g
Page 149 and 150: Tombrello-135 candidates came and g
Page 151 and 152: Tombrello-137 TOMBRELLO: I don’t
Page 153 and 154: Tombrello-139 TOMBRELLO: Yes. But I
Page 155: Tombrello-141 opposite sides. But h
Page 159 and 160: Tombrello-145 ASPATURIAN: Really? T
Page 161 and 162: Tombrello-147 TOMBRELLO: Yes. I’d
Page 163 and 164: Tombrello-149 I believe he had a vi
Page 165 and 166: Tombrello-151 to predict something
Page 167 and 168: Tombrello-175 And then in the summe
Page 169 and 170: Tombrello-177 think you need that c
Page 171 and 172: Tombrello-179 nuclear counterterror
Page 173 and 174: Tombrello-181 spoiled by that. The
Page 175 and 176: Tombrello-183 particularly the weap
Page 177 and 178: Tombrello-185 set up to prevent wea
Page 179 and 180: Tombrello-187 with those that alrea
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Page 183 and 184: Tombrello-191 TOMBRELLO: I know. I
Page 185 and 186: Tombrello-193 THOMAS A. TOMBRELLO S
Page 187 and 188: Tombrello-195 discretionary $19,000
Page 189 and 190: Tombrello-197 Lange is PMA chairman
Page 191 and 192: Tombrello-199 Witten’s here, Zewa
Page 193 and 194: Tombrello-201 There were many thing
Page 195 and 196: Tombrello-203 the key—the hallmar
Page 197 and 198: Tombrello-205 TOMBRELLO: Not exactl
Page 199 and 200: Tombrello-207 pieces of hardware th
Page 201 and 202: Tombrello-209 TOMBRELLO: It’s nic
Page 203 and 204: Tombrello-211 Wendy, until well int
Page 205 and 206: Tombrello-213 realized it was a wor
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Tombrello-215 you try for. But you
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Tombrello-217 TOMBRELLO: He did not
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Tombrello-219 ASPATURIAN: Just a re
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Tombrello-221 ASPATURIAN: How do yo
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Tombrello-223 He’s not dumb. OK.
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Tombrello-225 ASPATURIAN: And incre
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Tombrello-227 could control him. We
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Tombrello-233 down to the late stag
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Tombrello-235 THOMAS A. TOMBRELLO S
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Tombrello-237 the tandem laboratory
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Tombrello-239 picked Motorola’s 6
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Tombrello-241 ASPATURIAN: How did y
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Tombrello-243 town, staying in a ve
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Tombrello-245 TOMBRELLO: Somebody v
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Tombrello-247 years before, I’d s
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Tombrello-249 as good as you can im
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Tombrello-251 Los Alamos is a wonde
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Tombrello-253 TOMBRELLO: No. I thin
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Tombrello-255 navy, done the submar
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Tombrello-257 TOMBRELLO: —had don
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Tombrello-259 interesting people wh
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Tombrello-261 putting up a substant
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Tombrello-263 TOMBRELLO: I think so
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Tombrello-265 TOMBRELLO: There were
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Tombrello-267 at that, just to see
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Tombrello-269 ASPATURIAN: Is he ori
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Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

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