The Things You Miss

[akirlu]

Well, here's something to be cheered by.

During the furor over That Other Thing Recently, I lost track of the Nobel Prize announcements. I heard one or two go by, but evidently I blinked when they announced the Prize for physics. Turns out my old boss, David Politzer, just won a Nobel Prize. Well, golly. Yes, of course I've met Nobel Laureates before, but as it happens this is the first time the Laurel went to someone I already knew. Go, David.

I mentioned David a while back, in the post about the double rainbow over Pasadena. David was so proud of his kid in that moment. I would imagine that kid, now a man, will be beside himself with pride for his father this year. I hope so. When I knew him, David was so damned humble about himself, because his really brilliant work was behind him. That's probably still true, I'm not in a position to judge his more recent work, but you'd think the endorsement of the Royal Swedish Academy would mean something.

I must send off a postcard of congratulations to David, it being a little late in the day for telegrams, but in the mean time, I raise my (virtual) glass to David Politzer, a sweet man, a great boss, and a very smart physicist.

Update: There's a more recent solo picture of David at the bottom of this page, where it is also confirmed that David was a graduate student when he started the work that won him the Laurel. What I had not guessed is that the three winners were not working together. The other two worked with each other in a faculty-grad student relationship, as you'd expect, but David was apparently working solo. He was 24. Like I say, smart guy.

Comments

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Eh, no sweat. All is forgiven, Lassie come home. I guess I need to work on that name-dropping thing.