Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–199
Witten’s here, Zewail wins the Nobel Prize. There’s the usual celebration across campus.
There’s Champagne everywhere you go. I met up with the “stringers.” The “stringy” ones ask
me, “Do you have any other Nobel Prizes in mind?” I said, “Oh, yeah! There’s one sitting on
the corner of my desk for you guys in string theory.” I said, “I’m just ready to send it in, any
minute. But all you have to do is give me a number. I mean calculate something that will nail
the theory down, like the mass of the electron—you know, something. What got Niels Bohr the
prize, really, when he did the first stuff on quantum theory, was that he could calculate the
Rydberg constant. It was no longer a constant; it was something he calculated. You guys give
me a number the equivalent of the Rydberg and, my, you’re off to Stockholm in the twinkling of
an eye.” They all tittered, and I said, “But you’ve got to bring me the number, guys. Because
it’s not going in without a number.” And they’re still waiting for the number.
ASPATURIAN: String theory is an interesting field.
TOMBRELLO: It is a beautiful theory. It smells very good. I was certainly willing to make a big
bet on it. But it’s been in a quiet period for a while. They still have not figured out a way to
calculate things. It’s proved to be more complicated than they thought it would be.
ASPATURIAN: One wonders if it is perhaps a more complex approximation of something else.
TOMBRELLO: Anybody’s guess. So anyway, I had met the first goal and made the start of an
honest try on the astrophysics building. With Gordon’s money all things were possible.
If I may jump ahead a few years—since I’m on the building—I was at another dinner
with Walter Burke. The stock market has recovered a bit now from the dot-com bust. He says,
“We really liked what you did with the postdocs. I told you when you took the ten million for
the postdocs that it was that or the building. How’d you like ten million for the building?” I
said, “Walter, you’re making me look awfully good.” So, there was another $10 million. And
he said, “We don’t even care if we have our name on anything.” I said, “Walter, you’re making
me even better. I can sell some of this stuff twice now.” Walter’s a gentleman, and it’s fun
working with him. But I will tell you, he backs winners. Since I’m on Walter, I will tell one
more story. We were at an off-site meeting. Walter is a man of very strong opinions. He said,
“You know, it really bothers me that you have to go with your hat in hand to those fund-raisers
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