Physicist’s Stolen Nobel Still Missing

Though the man responsible for breaking into the home of Harvard Physics Professor Roy J. Glauber ’45 was arrested on Friday, Glauber’s stolen Nobel Prize medal has not yet been recovered.

Last month, a burglar—identified as Stephen Beaulieu—broke into Glauber’s home in Arlington, Mass. and stole the prestigious award that the professor had won in 2005 for his contributions to the quantum theory of optical coherence.

Upon discovering one of Beaulieu’s food stamp receipts in Glauber’s home, police arrested Beaulieu in Russel, Mass. and placed him in a Cambridge jail, according to The Boston Herald.

But Glauber’s Nobel Prize has not yet surfaced.

Captain Robert Bongiorno of the Arlington police department said on Saturday that his office has reached out to law enforcement agencies across New England at the local, state, and federal level and that he was confident the prize would be recovered.

“This is a quite unique case for us,” Bongiorno said.

“In my law enforcement career, I’ve never seen anything like this,” he added.

Based on the Nobel medal’s “unique qualities,” Bongiorno said that “it’s in someone’s best interest” to return the prize to the authorities.

Since 1980, Nobel medals have been made of 18-karat green gold and then plated with 24-karat gold. Given the medal’s unmistakable design and mold, an attempt to sell the medal would be difficult.

Bongiorno said that Arlington forces will continue the “open and active” search for the prize.

“Because of [the Nobel medal’s] significant emotional value to the professor, it is a priority of ours to recover that for him,” Bongiorno added.

Assuming that the Arlington police fail to recover the 2005 medal, the question remains whether the Nobel Prize committee would issue Glauber another medal.

Members of the Nobel Prize committee could not be reached for comment on Saturday.

—Staff writer James K. McAuley can be reached at mcauley@fas.harvard.edu.