Dr. Preston

This is the photograph of Dr. William (Bill) Preston. HH Priya Nath used to recall how the Head of the Physics Department at Harvard, Dr. Preston, in 1967 especially lifted up a chair and brought it for him as he entered the Office. No head of the department in India would have been so humble or friendly.

Dr. Preston kept on asking HH Priya Nath whether his scholarship had been paid to him in time or not, otherwise he could get try for a loan for him, he asked him "Are you eating all right? How are you managing without funds if the scholarship has not come?"  Fortunately it had come. But HH Priya Nath could never forget the concern and love of the Head of the Physics Department who had met him for the first time in his life. As HH Priya Nath would ever afterwards recall, the face of Dr. Preston had a strange resemblance to the face of HH Shri Nathji in his 60's. It was as if HH Shri Nathji had appeared in the Physics Department at Harvard to look after Priya Nath.
HH Priya Nathji was ever afterwards to say that if anything in the world would make him stay in the US it would be the intense humility and goodness of heart of the Americans, and not their material prosperity. This goodness and humility was most pronounced amongst the scientists, who HH Priya Nathji called the "real saints and sages" - people who were incapable of sinning, who had no ambitions and desires and no hatred or prejudices for anyone and were totally absorbed in their work day and night, as if they were a part of science itself.
HH Priya Nathji understood why so many great scientific discoveries came from there-- it was the purity of their hearts that allowed God' knowledge to manifest itself through them.
HH Shri Nathji had said: "The ultimate discovery of science will be God!"

William (Bill) Preston was an outstanding nuclear physicist who did his PHd. in 1936. He was the head of the cyclotron laboratory. He was Director of HCL  for 20 years. (1955 – 1975). Among his various contributions to the scientific world his most notable was in the field of Proton radiotherapy. Dr. Preston  along with his associates, Andy Koehler, and Prof. Wilson (called the Biomedical Group in the Harvard archives) made outstanding inroads in the use of radiotherapy in the field of medicines. At Harvard circles he is remembered as a very successful scientific administrator. Who skillfully managed the department of physicals and its various laboratories.