Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–34
So we’re into the late seventies, and the budget—the financial situation—in Kellogg is
not getting necessarily a lot better. The NSF funding was sort of stalled. So the program in
nuclear physics, nuclear astrophysics, wasn’t growing. There was no way, aside from money for
infrastructure, that I could divert money from grants for applied programs into the NSF grant. So
pressures are building up, and by the end of ’82 it just came apart. Willy was mad. I think it was
Nobel fever. He clearly deserved to be considered for a Nobel Prize, but he wasn’t getting it,
though we nominated him a couple of times [Fowler received the Nobel in 1983—ed.]. They got
tired of me being PI. It came apart in a very acrimonious way. It could have been done nicely.
It wasn’t. And so it basically split me off from the group before I split myself off from it. I
ended up on the top floor of Kellogg with my own group and bought access to the Kellogg
accelerator.
ASPATURIAN: Bought access?
TOMBRELLO: Yeah. Well, you know, you basically pay for time on it.
ASPATURIAN: Like time on a telescope.
TOMBRELLO: Right. The NSF guaranteed a certain amount of time. NSF had given me a certain
amount of support, grudgingly. But that’s an interesting story in its own right. The NSF people
in nuclear physics were acting as if they weren’t going to do anything for me. I was a dead man.
I was clearly worried about all this.
ASPATURIAN: May I ask the question?
TOMBRELLO: Willy was mad at me.
ASPATURIAN: Over your bringing in outsiders to use the facilities?
TOMBRELLO: Right. He saw the lab moving in a direction he didn’t like.
ASPATURIAN: OK.
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