Howard Wolowitz

Howard Joel Wolowitz, M.Eng., is a Jewish aerospace engineer who lives with his mother. As the best friend of Rajesh Koothrappali, Howard often hangs out at Leonard and Sheldon's apartment with him. Although he's the only member of the group lacking a doctoral degree, he defends this by pointing out that he not only has a Master's degree in Engineering from MIT, but also designs important devices like the "space toilet" used at the International Space Station. Fancying himself a smooth ladies' man, Howard is rather confident in trying to woo girls (unlike the other three), mostly through creepy overtures and sometimes with his knowledge of foreign languages, of which he knows seven (including Klingon). During the show he dates and eventually marries Bernadette, with whom he bonded over their hatred towards their overbearing mothers. He is also an astronaut.

Career
Howard is an Aerospace Engineer and faculty at Caltech's Department of Applied Physics. He has worked in the astronautical engineering lab for three years as of the first season, began work at JPL's Deep Space Operations Center prior to the series, and has his own Mechanical Engineering Lab.

Howard designed a satellite which is currently orbiting Jupiter's largest moon taking high-resolution digital photographs and remotely repairs satellites on a regular basis. He also troubleshoots space shuttle payloads, while some of the components he built are on the International Space Station, including a small payload support structure for a European science experimental package and the Wolowitz Programmable Hand designed for extravehicular repairs. He even performed a front end alignment from 62 million miles away when a Mars rover started pulling to the left and managed to get a Mars rover stuck in a ditch, only to have the data which it sent back from the crevice contain the first clear indications that there may have been life on Mars. However, as co-designer of the Pishkin-Wolowitz Liquid Waste Disposal System and designer of the (albeit flawed) Wolowitz Zero-Gravity Waste Disposal System for the International Space Station, he doesn't get much respect. Further, Howard is not credited for creating a stabilizing telescope camera mounting bracket for Raj and failed to make the team for the new Defense Department laser-equipped surveillance satellite since he was denied the requisite security clearance.

In "The Russian Rocket Reaction", NASA selected his team's design for a deep field space telescope that will be installed on the International Space Station, granting him the opportunity to fly aboard a Soyuz rocket to observe its deployment on the space station as a payload specialist for Expedition 31. Subsequently, Howard was requested to report to the NASA Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Texas, for astronaut training. He completed human centrifuge training and survival training in the wilderness, in addition to experiencing zero-g on a reduced gravity aircraft. Following a Soyuz capsule pressurization test failure, the three-week mission had initially been scrubbed, but NASA rescheduled for an earlier launch from Kazakhstan, during which liftoff commenced with a minor fuel leak.

Characterization
Cheeky and supposedly suave, Howard provides outrageous techniques in an attempt to get girls in the first three seasons, none of which are remotely successful. Howard 's techniques to approach women are varied, including magic and card tricks, ventriloquism, and techniques from the Mystery Method, such as peacocking and negging. He is consistently depicted as the most sex-crazed of the guys, although he doesn't think his sexual behavior is any different from other men. One time, he developed a mathematical formula for the likelihood of him having sex by applying and modifying the Drake equation to include the "Wolowitz coefficient," which he defined as "neediness times dress size squared." He stated, "I'm a horny engineer... I never joke about math or sex." He often fantasizes about several actresses, including Katee Sackhoff, but apparently every woman is his type. Howard describes himself as a romantic, although he usually comes across as overtly sexual and, in Penny's words, disgusting. However, as the series progresses, Howard becomes dedicated to Bernadette, although he still uses pick-up lines. He reveals more of his facets to Bernadette. As part of his delusions regarding himself, he opines that he is a "tender-hearted poet" and "crazy daredevil". He claims to appear confident and worldly, though he admits he is not.

Howard is multilingual, using many tongues to try to impress the ladies, sadly to little avail. Most of the languages were revealed in the pilot; in revealed order, they are English, French, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic, and Farsi. Howard also speaks Klingon (and plays Klingon Boggle). As shown in "The Wiggly Finger Catalyst", he also knows sign language, and in "The Hawking Excitation", he speaks Japanese and Binary-coded ASCII. However, Howard may not be as competent a polyglot as he believes. In "The Dumpling Paradox", the owner of Szechuan Palace referred to Howard as "...your annoying little friend who thinks he speaks Mandarin." As evidence, he addressed Penny in Mandarin (saying "洗个痛快澡"! - Have a Good Shower!") spoken in the wrong tones. Another time, he addressed Penny in Russian (saying "Ты очень красивая девушка" — "You are a very beautiful girl"), but used bad pronunciation. Sheldon also corrected him in "The Hawking Excita tion   """"""" ," when Howard made a mistake in binary. On the contrary, he speaks his French without any speaking errors.

Once Howard finds a joke he likes, he sticks with it. Sheldon even describes him as the funny one in their group, while Howard has said of himself that he is quirky. He mimics voices such as Raj's Indian accent and his mother's accent, and often spews cultural stereotypes. He uses slang such as "fo’shizzle to my nerdizzles," demonstrating his supposed street cred. Howard often has married-couple-like arguments with Raj, usually mocking his words or covering for his obnoxiousness, and is the primary means by which Raj is heard whenever Penny is present. Very sensitive, Howard can be traumatized by a hurtful comment from a woman and there is a glimmer of goodness in him that he allowed Penny to see.

Howard spends a large amount of time playing MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, where he plays a night elf hunter named Wolowizard with a pet tiger named Buttons, and Age of Conan where he is a Guardian named Sir Howard of Wolowitz. Howard enjoys (and is very decent at) DDR. He likes reading comics, similar to his friends, and is a Dungeon Master. He has an entire closet of magic tricks. A model rocket enthusiast, Howard designed the engine himself for a three-stage rocket. His advancements in robotics include the Mobile Omnidirectional Neutralization and Termination Eradicator (MONTE) for the Southern California Robot Fighting League Round Robin Invitational. He also once sent a signal around the world via the Internet just to turn on a lamp.

He is asthmatic, allergic to peanuts, almonds and walnuts, prone to canker sores and pink eye, succumbs to seasickness, has an incredibly high genetic risk of heart illness, and has transient idiopathic arrhythmia. His small size and thin build are also the source of many jokes for people who know him.

Howard sports a bowl haircut and wears loud, vintage, 1960-era outfits with a matching color scheme: a V-neck or tee shirt over a turtleneck or dickey with a variety of pins on the neck, Vans or Converse sneakers, and skinny pants with collectible belt buckles, often being a reference to geek culture, although he only owns one belt. Howard's pajamas are silk gowns embroidered with his initials, " H W J ", befitting his bedroom containing satin sheets, remote-controlled romantic music, and mood lighting set by lightsabers overhanging his bed. His preferred mode of transportation is his Vespa motor scooter, though in "The Parking Spot Escalation", he gets a car of his own.

Family
Howard is noted for living with his overbearing Jewish mother (but to Howard she lives with him), who always makes his life miserable at home with her nosy nature as well as her barrage of disturbing questions, and apparently is oblivious to his accomplishments as a grown-up, usually treating him like he is still a child, thus filling the stereotype of a. Never seen on-screen except for an overhead glimpse in the Season Five finale, and a late season Six episode where she is seen from behind through and ajar door no less than three times. She only communicates with Howard by yelling to him in an obnoxious manner, which results in awkward long-distance conversations, with Howard frustratingly yelling back at her. Such behavior prompts him to call her a "crazy old lady". Howard stated that she had safety bars on his bed until he was seventeen in the Season Two finale. Despite this, Howard likes to be mothered to some degree, has an unresolved and seems to appreciate some of his mother's cooking, especially her brisket, a dish that Howard refers to throughout (unlike the turbriskefilte, a turkey stuffed with a brisket stuffed with gefilte fish, which he says he 'doesn't even chew' but 'swallows like pills'). It is implied strongly that his mom is incredibly fat and disturbingly masculine, causing Leonard to believe she was Howard's dad when he first heard her. It has been stated that she also has a large mustache.

In "The Precious Fragmentation", Howard reveals that his father left the family when Howard was eleven. To help Howard overcome this, his mom bought him an doll to console Howard. Although it is not stated what really happened, Howard assumes that his father did not like him. In "The Hot Troll Deviation", Howard infers that the distal cause of why he "tries too hard" with women is due to abandonment issues, as opposed to the proximal cause being his looks (as stated in "The Killer Robot Instability"): "I’m just another lonely nerd, living with his mother, trying to find any scrap of happiness he can. You know, maybe to make up for the fact that his dad left him when he was eleven." His parents were drunk all the time and it has never been established why his father left.

Howard lost his virginity to his second cousin Jeanie at Aunt Barbara's house in a during his Uncle Murray's funeral, which Leonard and Raj find extremely funny. His cousin David provided him with the half-carat ring for Bernadette. He has a cousin in who lives with her husband Avi, as well as cousins from Fort Lauderdale, while his Aunt Betty (his mother's sister) and Uncle Elliot are from. Howard also has an Uncle Louie, whom he ridicules based on a photo of him in a bathing suit. He says they are "Jewish hobbits," as evidenced by dinner at his house on. After Howard's great-grandfather immigrated to the United States, he ran a little butcher shop on the Lower East Side of New York, ripping people off. Howard's family has a genetically high risk of heart disease.

Rajesh Koothrappali
Raj is Howard's best friend. Howard invites his buddy over to his house all the time. Howard has called them co-pilots of the, and they have weekly routines they do together. However, Howard becomes easily distracted and sometimes abandons him, only to be unmindful of any wrongdoing. Sadly, he taught Raj his dance moves, and Howard seems to wear off on him, as Raj can be very womanizing and uses slang. He scoffs at Raj when he says something stupid, and has once complained that he's going to end up with swimmer's ear with Raj whispering in his ear, although Sheldon cannot tolerate his moist breath in his ear altogether.

Despite the fact that Howard is undeniably obsessed with women, Dr. Beverly Hofstadter, Leonard 's mother, says they are in an "ersatz homosexual marriage". Amusingly, Raj and Howard have several arguments during the series, in which Raj repeatedly accuses Howard of leaving him for everybody who's only slightly better looking and otherwise assuming the cliché female role in partnership arguments. Season 4 jokingly introduced the possibility of Howard's "latent homosexual tendencies" when appeared as himself in an imaginary conversation with Bernadette and  over his relationship status with Bernadette, but Howard quickly denied it. Before Howard met Bernadette, it was implied that he called Raj "honey", and Mrs. Wolowitz is relieved when he has a girl over to the house.

Leonard Hofstadter
Howard meets Leonard in "The Staircase Implementation". Howard told Penny that both he and Raj liked Leonard. Leonard has helped him quite often, and Howard faced an allergic reaction partly to provide Leonard's first birthday party. Though, Howard finds Leonard's worries over Penny humorous sometimes, and they like to post embarrassing things about each other on YouTube and Twitter. The two of them made a pact that if either one of them ever got a girlfriend, the other one would set up the single guy with one of her girlfriends. But when it comes to agreements and women, they frequently fight. Leonard does enjoy poking fun at Howard's height, although he is only a quarter of an inch taller ("and don't you forget it!").

Sheldon Cooper
Sheldon often makes fun of Howard for not having a doctoral degree and for being an engineer, referring to engineers as "noble semi-skilled laborers" and "the Oompa-Loompas of science", and calling engineering "the slow younger brother of physics". He has referred to their group of scientists as "a group of geniuses and their friend Howard", thus ruling him out, and called Howard "a treasured acquaintance" instead of a close friend like Leonard, Raj and Penny. Sheldon describes Raj as Howard's primary friend, Leonard as Howard's secondary friend, and himself as Howard's tertiary friend.

However, Sheldon still says that if he ever needs a slightly apathetic tertiary friend, he is there for him, and refers to him as "the funny one" in their group. Though often annoyed by Sheldon, Howard is able to perceive when Sheldon is upset, unlike with best friend Raj. Howard has varied between not really caring whether he and Sheldon are friends and being visibly wounded when Sheldon is dismissive of him. During the time when Sheldon considered who to jettison from his circle of friends and said critically that Howard doesn't have a Ph.D. and isn't available to play video games during the Jewish High Holidays, Howard seemed pleased that he might be freed from Sheldon's friendship, only to watch as Sheldon then ordered a horrified Raj out of the circle of friends. Later, the "treasured acquaintance" remark makes Howard's face fall as if hearing that Leonard, Penny and Raj are considered friends while he isn't, is upsetting to him.

Penny
Since the beginning of the series, Howard has shown interest in Penny, but the interest is primarily sexual and she always turns him down. She commonly sees Howard as disgusting and inhuman. However, Penny's animosity toward Howard has mellowed somewhat since Howard began dating her work colleague Bernadette Rostenkowski, to whom he is now married. Penny introduced them to each other, is very nosy about their relationship, and once questioned if Bernadette truly loves Howard. She thinks Howard's story about his father is extremely sad; Howard used this as leverage for Penny to help him get Bernadette back, after tricking her to open the door for whom she thought was Sheldon.

Amy
Howard has a complicated relationship with Amy. She, like Sheldon, makes fun of him for not having a doctoral degree. Therefore, their relationship is the same way as it is between Howard and Sheldon.

Romantic
Amongst his friends, Howard is the least successful at getting dates, despite his obsessive drive. However he is the first to end up married.

Christy Vanderbel
Through Penny, inadvertently, Howard hooked up with Christy, "the whore of ." The two upset Penny by abusing her personal belongings, such as using her loofah mitt and getting her stuffed bear collection sweaty. Christy then had to stay with Howard at his house. Although she displayed signs of affection towards Howard, Christy was highly materialistic, and went out with him only on the condition he buy her stuff and take her shopping; this was more than fine with him. She dumped him when she confronted Howard's mother, who threatened to cut Howard out of the will, as long as he kept going out with her.

Lisa
Howard was introduced to Lisa by her roommate Stephanie Barnett in "The Lizard-Spock Expansion", but she is never seen. She just went through a bad breakup and Stephanie thought she should meet someone fun like Howard. Wolowitz apologized for how their first date ended, and wanted her to come have brisket at his house.

Leslie Winkle
Howard engaged in a "friends with benefits" relationship with Leslie, which brought him a few benefits beside sex including receiving a rapid prototyper and getting on the research trip to Geneva to check out the CERN Supercollider. However, he still became depressed when Leslie dumped him some time later. In order to cheer him up, Leonard and Raj took Howard to Las Vegas and managed to hire a prostitute for him, giving him the Jewish girlfriend experience.

Bethany
Bethany was a girl that Howard and Raj met in a Goth nightclub in Hollywood with her friend Sarah. Both guys took a liking to Bethany and ignored Sarah. At Bethany's suggestion, they then went to a tattoo parlor, where Bethany implied she would be with Howard if he got a new tattoo. Howard gave into his fear of the needle and exposed himself and Raj as frauds, causing both women to quickly leave.

Bernadette Rostenkowski


Howard's relationship with Bernadette is easily his most significant romantic relationship. Howard was introduced to Bernadette by Penny after he initiated the pact with Leonard in "The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary". At first, she and Howard did not get along, as they appeared to have nothing in common. However, when they found out they both had overbearing mothers they immediately felt a connection.

He first proposed to her in "The Vengeance Formulation", but she claimed that they had not even slept together yet. His action was most probably influenced by his desire to get her to forgive him and to please her, rather than his desire to spend the rest of his life with her. Although Bernadette rejects his offer, they remain a couple for a time after Howard sings a heartfelt song for her at the Cheesecake Factory, which Penny finds quite embarrassing, but Bernadette finds romantic. Eventually, they break up after she discovers Howard, via his character, having sex with another online character. Bernadette and Howard reconcile and resume their relationship. In "The Herb Garden Germination", Howard proposed again to Bernadette and she accepted. In the fifth season finale, "The Countdown Reflection", the two finally got married in a simple ceremony held on the rooftop of the apartment building, shortly before Howard went to space.

Glacinda The Troll
Glacinda the Troll is an avatar in World of Warcraft that Howard had, according to Bernadette, "clicked the brains out [of]" It was revealed in The Hot Troll Deviation by Leonard that Glacinda was a male member of the University's janitorial staff. This episode is the only one where Glacinda is mentioned. Despite the minority of this character, Howard's dalliance with Glacinda caused his initial breakup with Bernadette.

Unknown Friends
Although Howard is socially awkward like his friends, he has friends in strange but useful places such as and the  who lend him technology such as military driving simulators to teach Sheldon to drive, spy drones to spy on the Top Model House and advanced security equipment to protect Leonard and Sheldon's apartment after it was robbed. He has also managed to "borrow" expensive equipment, presumably gaining entry due to friends even if he had to steal it. He takes a high-tech robot arm in "The Robotic Manipulation" and gets an extremely expensive camera in "The 43 Peculiarity", which may have required help from his friends.

He also has been shown to have "nerdy" friends who enjoy Star Wars and the like. He manages to get the ring in "The Precious Fragmentation" valued by a guy named Eddie Crispo and in that same episode says "I know lots of dangerous people".

Religion
Although, Howard is not very serious about his faith and does not keep kosher. For instance, he eats pork often and without regret; and when the price of pork went up at the group's favorite Chinese restaurant, he remarked "it's getting tougher and tougher to be a bad Jew." He is not at all concerned about postponing sex until wedlock (like every other religious character on the show, except for Sheldon's parents). On another occasion, when Howard tried to date Sheldon's sister, Missy, he said he would kill his rabbi with a pork chop if his religion was an impediment, and one of the reasons he was happy to continue dating Bernadette (who is Catholic) was the chance to really annoy his mom. Despite this, Howard has shown some belief in his faith. When he and Raj posed as Goths to pick up women, he wore fake-tattoo sleeves and refused to get real ones so he could be buried in a cemetery. He also apparently attends High Holiday services, as Sheldon once critically noted that he was not available to compete in Halo during those times.

Trivia

 * He is the only one of the group, other than Penny, to lack a Ph.D. He is often mocked by Sheldon and others for this.
 * Howard has a master’s degree in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It required the completion of 144 units of grad work and an original thesis.
 * His astronaut nickname has been designated as "Froot Loops".
 * Howard has a different chest hair count in "The Cushion Saturation" and "The 21-Second Excitation".
 * Howard wears alien pins on his collar in every episode, yet the pin has not been mentioned thus far.
 * Even though Howard is Jewish, like Raj, he does not seem to take his faith seriously and hardly keeps Kosher.
 * Howard is 5'4", since his actor, Simon Helberg, is 5'4".
 * Howard and his mother live in Altadena, California, north of Pasadena.
 * Howard wears Vans and Converse.
 * Wolowitz is a huge fan of Stephen Hawking and likes to watch tapes of his lectures, preferably ones prior to 1985, "before he became a 'creepy' computer voice" (Hawking lost his voice due to a tracheotomy performed after a life-threatening bout of pneumonia and now communicates using a voice synthesizer). In "The Hawking Excitation", Howard actually gets the chance to meet him, helping him with his wheelchair equipment.
 * Wolowitz spends a large amount of time playing MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, where he plays a night elf hunter named Wolowizard with a pet tiger named Buttons. And Age of Conan where he is a Guardian named Sir Howard of Wolowitz.
 * Howard enjoys (and is very good at) DDR.
 * Howard is allergic to peanuts and when he does eat one, his face goes pink and swells up very badly.
 * Howard owns an Alienware computer.
 * Howard has a Dell XPS M1210 with a 6 Cell Battery.
 * Howard owns a Motorola V3, Nokia N95 and various iPhone cellphones.
 * Howard's personal wardrobe and grooming styles are based on Davy Jones from The Monkees, usually including a 1960s hip bowl-style haircut (even though he chose to have a '70s disco style Afro and goat beard 7 years ago) and a brightly colored shirt.
 * Howard can beatbox, albeit badly.
 * The character is named after show producer Bill Prady's former business partner in a software development company, Howard Wolowitz.
 * Howard maintains that his mother lives with him, rather than he lives with his mother.
 * Howard gets around Pasadena by means of gas-powered scooter although he may have gotten a car because in "The Robotic Manipulation" he states that he smuggled the robotic arm to his car.
 * He has a massive collection of belt buckles, yet only has one belt.
 * Howard sports a number of belt buckles, including a chimpanzee, deli sandwich, a film projector, Nintendo controller and the 'Superman Returns' shield. Many of his belt buckles are purchased from thealley.com
 * Howard plays the drums on Rock Band.
 * Howard once went to medical school, but dropped out because he easily gets nauseated when he sees injuries (as seen in "The White Asparagus Triangulation" when he appears sick when he sees stitches on Leonard's hand).
 * Howard says in "The Friendship Algorithm" that he's thinking about growing a mustache but it's not until "The Electric Can Opener Fluctuation" he appears with one, having grown a massive beard at the North Pole and keeping the mustache when they shave their beards off.
 * According to "The Apology Insufficiency", his middle name is Joel.
 * In "The Alien Parasite Hypothesis", Howard mentions having taken a karate lesson when he was 11. He claims that he could have become more proficient if his mother could have arranged a carpool.
 * Howard was bullied as a child. He received the common treatment of wedgies and swirlies.
 * He weighs 118 pounds, as revealed by Bernadette in "The Engagement Reaction".
 * Howard's online username/persona/identity is Wolowizard.
 * His nightmare is to shower after the game and for other guys see him naked.
 * It also appears that he is left handed, as he uses the fork in the right hand and the knife in his left while eating pancakes at the end of "The Pulled Groin Extrapolation". It is unknown whether the actor playing him, Simon Helberg, is left handed.
 * Howard bears similarities to comedian Moe Howard, such as his haircut, name, and Jewish heritage.
 * Though considered the least smartest member of the group for not having a doctorate, Howard appears to be smarter than his friends acknowledge him as, such as besting Sheldon at insect biology in Season 3's second episode. He also states in "The Hawking Excitation" that he has a valid understanding of physics.
 * He, on one instance, was vengeful to Sheldon for saying he couldn't understand Physics, not letting him see Stephen Hawking and shunning him in Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Klingon, Binary Code and Gangsta ("Hells Naw")
 * He is the only one of the original group that hasn't seen Penny naked. Leonard when they were dating, Sheldon during "The Adhesive Duck Deficiency" and Raj when he 'slept' with her.
 * Both Howard and Sheldon connect with their girlfriends over the personalities of their mothers.
 * He is the first and only one of the nerds to get married.
 * Howard may be the basis for Miho Hidaka from the manga/anime series Prodigy Teacher Yuto.
 * Bill Prady described Howard as perfecting Pepe Le Pew, the skunk from Looney Tunes, who constantly tried to get a girl to love him.
 * In "The Bakersfield Expedition", Sheldon dressed as the Star Trek: The Next Generation alien, a Borg.

Phrases Howard has used to hit on women, mainly Penny:
 * "See a Penny, pick her up, and all the day you'll have good luck."
 * (Howard was dressed as Robin Hood on Halloween but everyone thought he was Peter Pan:) "I got a lot of fairy dust with your name on it."
 * (Trying to hit on Summer Glau; Raj later stole this line) "It's hot in here; it must be Summer."
 * "Are you from Mars? Because your ass is out of this world."
 * "Your ass must be jelly, because jam doesn't shake like that."
 * "If that's a working stethoscope, then maybe you'd like to hear my heart skip a beat."
 * He has also called Penny a "cheesecake-scented goddess".