There was—to take just one example—the time that Tel Aviv University threw a party for a physicist who had just won the Wolf Prize. It was the discipline’s second-highest honor, and its winners more often than not went on to win the Nobel. Most of the leading physicists in the country came to the party, but somehow the prizewinner ended up in the corner with Amos—who had recently taken an interest in black holes. The next day the prizewinner called his hosts to ask, “Who was that physicist I was talking to? He never told me his name.” After some confusing back-and-forth, his hosts figured out
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