I can one up: I actually worked with the guy on a contract. The people we did the work for were kind of jerks, but Cliff was amazing. Old school mad scientist.

I can one up: I actually worked with the guy on a contract. The people we did the work for were kind of jerks, but Cliff was amazing. Old school mad scientist. Except he radiates a saint-like benevolence and good-heartedness which is all too rare these days. Like a cross between the professor on "back to the future," Yoda, and a Catholic saint. LBNL should have given him a lab, a quarter million bucks for equipment he might find interesting and permanent access to the machine shops and library. The fact that they didn't is ... one of the reasons I no longer work there and why modern science and its culture is a trash fire.