1) Receiving the Nobel Prize – The First Report
Photo A – Leo Esaki during his time at the IBM Watson Research Center
Photo B – The IBM Watson Research Center
Lady luck always seems to come at the most unexpected of times.
That was the case when the Nobel Prize for Physics was received by Leo Esaki,
who at the time was a research fellow at the IBM Watson Research Center in
the United States.
In the story I heard from Esaki, the first report was from a radio station
reporter in New York at 7:45 am October 23, 1973. Still groggy from sleep,
my family urged me to pick up the receiver. The voice on the other side told
me that I had won the Nobel Prize, and asked for my comment as a winner. However
I had not received any formal notice yet. I was going to put down the receiver,
telling him that since I had not received any notice, I could not respond
to such a story.
Suddenly the radio by the phone was playing the 8 o'clock news said that two
Americans and one British had been selected as winners in "Research on
Tunnel Effects in Solids" and "Dr. Leo Esaki of IBM" was called
out. I am not an American, but IBM's laboratory has no other Dr. Esaki. I
finally realized it and answered to the reporter,
"I don’t know how to put this into words. (I am tremendously overwhelmed
by your news.)"
Photo A is Leo Esaki of the IBM Watson Research Institute. As will be described
later, I visited him at the institute immediately after receiving the award
and took his photograph. Esaki later enlarged this picture and decorated it
as a panel in his room, calling it his “most favorite photograph.”
Photo B is the foreground of IBM Watson Research Center in Yorktown, New York.