>Quotes About Bill Wattenburg

From a well-known scientist who once worked with Wattenburg:
“If anyone has spent $10 or $20 million on a difficult technical problem and not found a solution, they probably should have asked Bill Wattenburg First.”

Said to Bill by a woman who pulled up next to his Mercedes 280SL in traffic (his licence plate said “PILL”):
“Hey, thanks for reminding me!”

SF Chronicle, Aug. 16, 1974, p. 25, in Herb Caen’s column.

From a colleague at the Nevada test site:
“He was always looking for the simple solution that everyone else had overlooked. His favorite saying was: ‘A smart cowboy just wouldn’t work this hard to make things so goddamn difficult.’ Then he would throw up his hands and go off to tease the ladies in some local bar down the highway while the rest of us were working our butts off.”

“You are always wondering when he is going to make a fool out of you, and do it in some simple way or with some crazy experiment that forces you to stand and applaud your own ignorance.”

“But if you want to know what I really think of him, I’ll tell you. If I am ever trapped in a spaceship and everyone says it is hopeless, I hope he is still around, and near a telephone…”

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