Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–220
She’s one of the great speakers. She’ll be on campus the end of next week for [associate
professor of physics] Maria Spiropulu’s little event called “The Physics of the Universe.” At that
event last year, Lisa gave by far the best talk. I’m certain this year it will be at least as good.
She thinks clearly and she speaks clearly. I like her a lot. But I failed in dealing with what I can
only describe as insecurities, and [Andrew] Lange—we thought he might have better luck with
her—ended up in the same place I was in. There was nothing you could do with it. They’re
bringing her back yet another time, I think, as a Moore Scholar. She doesn’t want to teach. That
causes a problem. Everybody in this division teaches. Feynman taught. Gell-Mann taught. All
of us teach. You don’t teach much, but you teach and you teach well. She has the makings of a
very good teacher. She didn’t want to teach, she wanted to be special. We lost a winner of the
Veblen Prize in geometry to the Institute for Advanced Study because he wouldn’t teach. That’s
just too bad, because at Caltech everybody teaches.
ASPATURIAN: Was that David Gabai?
TOMBRELLO: Yes, David’s now at Princeton. We replaced David with Calegari. I like David
very, very much, but he was the Karate Kid, very much involved in karate, and I kept telling him
as he was leaving that Mr. Ohshima was not at Princeton. That’s the farm-team problem, that
you lose guys like David. But we got one of his first-born and that’s OK, too. Graber and
Calegari are as good as David Gabai, though I miss having David here. Losing people is
something you have to get used to. As long as you can replace them with people who can hit the
ball just as far, that’s OK.
ASPATURIAN: How about the post–Tombrello era in the division? It’s been two or three years
now since you stepped down [2008].
TOMBRELLO: Well, I’ve had a hard time with the administration at Caltech.
[PORTION TEMPORARILY CLOSED, pages 220-221]
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