Weird science. Real physics and math make cameos on The Big Bang Theory. physicist to advise a sitcom. Science recently spoke with him and Prady, and paid a visit to the set of The Big Bang Theory, to learn how cut- ting-edge research gets injected into the show. The pair defended the show against charges that it has too few women scientists and mocks physicists as Klingon-speaking nerds. Whether giving a talk about the sitcom at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics or simply attending a party, Saltzberg inevitably encounters people offended by the show’s putative sexism and nerdism. Most of the SCIENCE AND SOCIETY show’s detractors, he notes, have never seen a whole episode. Prady stresses that The Big Bang Theory means no ill will. “If the scien- Talk Nerdy to Me tific community is concerned with how we depict them, be gentle and be patient,” he says. Downloaded from A surprise hit, the new TV comedy The Big Bang Theory plumbs science for laughs, “We are you; we love you.” thanks to aid from physicist David Saltzberg and friends Sheldon: “This is one of those circumstances Leonard: “At least I didn’t have to invent Lorre created the show. people unfamiliar with the law of large num- 26 dimensions to make the math work.” Hollywood has a tradition of exploiting bers would call a coincidence.” Sheldon: “I didn’t invent them. They’re there.” geek humor, from Jerry Lewis’s The Nutty Pro- http://science.sciencemag.org/ Leonard: “In what universe?!” fessor to the Revenge of the Nerds. Many cur- Saltzberg got his unusual gig via a friend, a Sheldon: “All of them. That’s the point.” rent TV shows, particularly forensic crime dra- Hawaiian astrophysicist who’d helped on the mas such as CSI, draw regularly on math and show’s unaired pilot. When the show was Physicists may be notorious for coming up science, both for plot elements and the occa- picked up by CBS, the producers went search- with weird concepts such as alter- sional laugh. Numb3rs, in which a ing for a local to vet last-minute changes. native universes. But a popular sit- mathematician helps his FBI agent Saltzberg generally looks over the scripts in uation comedy based on their Online brother, is even used as the basis for advance and then drives in once a week to work seems almost as fanciful. Yet sciencemag.org teacher’s worksheets provided by Burbank for the show’s evening tapings. last October, the American TV For video clips Texas Instruments and the National Saltzberg is “right there to give us the new network CBS premiered The Big of The Big Bang Council of Teachers of Mathemat- word we need,” Prady says. “A couple of on April 8, 2021 Bang Theory, and about 9 million Theory, visit this story ics. Given all of that, working on weeks ago, he provided us with a terrific, gen- people now watch it each week— online. film or television can be a perk for uine joke, and it was on the air.” enough for CBS to quickly renew a Los Angeles–area scientist or The sitcom features Leonard and Sheldon, the show for another year. The Washington physician. Kevin Grazier of NASA’s Jet Propul- the two physicists, and Penny, an actress/wait- Post’s critic Tom Shales calls it “the funniest sion Laboratory in Pasadena, for example, con- ress who is their bridge to the world of people new sitcom of the season.” Apparently, it isn’t sults for three shows. who don’t have a periodic table shower cur- just quarks that can be strange and charming. Still, The Big Bang Theory is the first time a tain. She’s a loyal friend, even attending Centering on two male physics postdocs prime-time comedy has taken science this seri- Leonard’s talk on supersolidity—at which she and the blonde bombshell who moves in next ously—and Saltzberg is surely the only particle falls asleep. Leonard’s subject matter was sug- door, The Big Bang Theory follows the sitcom gested by the show’s “geek of the formula of placing quirky, exaggerated charac- week,” in this case graduate stu- ters in situations both odd and mundane. But dent Matt Mecklenburg, who’d where the show breaks the mold is that most of accompanied Saltzberg to the set, those characters and situations revolve around as colleagues, friends, and stu- science, highly accurate science for the most dents do every week. part, thanks to experimental particle physicist One can argue about whether David Saltzberg of the University of California, The Big Bang Theory is funny— Los Angeles (UCLA), who’s been with the TV critic Maureen Ryan of the show from the initial episode. From making Chicago Tribune called its jokes sure lab equipment looks suitably haphazard to “tired and mean-spirited”—but supplying the equations displayed on the show, it’s clear that Prady and his writers Saltzberg’s presence is regularly felt on the set; have scientific chops, accurately he even has a director’s chair with his name on incorporating physics terms such it. “I can’t overestimate his value to what we Odd couple. Physicist David Saltzberg (left) and Bill Prady, The Big as “soft component of cosmic do,” says Bill Prady, who along with Chuck Bang Theory’s co-creator. radiation” into dialogue even BROS. TELEVISION ENTERTAINMENT CREDITS (TOP TO BOTTOM): WARNER 740 9 MAY 2008 VOL 320 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org Published by AAAS NEWSFOCUS before Saltzberg sees a script. Several years physicist who lies about what she does in doodling around the edges. That part there— ago, one writer dressed up for a Halloween social situations, because she feels her career that’s just a joke. It’s a spoof of the Born- party as the Doppler effect. The show incorpo- intimidates men. “We’re going to have Leslie Oppenheimer approximation.” rated the idea, putting Sheldon in a bodysuit do that,” Prady says. “Whenever anybody with white vertical stripes separated by less says they lie about who they are, there’s a rich UCLA hasn’t objected to Saltzberg’s and less distance. He made accompanying story to tell there.” spending his free time consulting for the train noises whose pitch went up and down. To The show’s other lead character is string the- show—he gets an on-air credit and fee—but his dismay, no guest got it. orist Sheldon, played by Jim Parsons as an arro- Warner Bros.’ lawyers have stopped on-air Prady, a self-taught software programmer, gant, emotionally oblivious, yet endearing, for- disclosure of Sheldon and Leonard’s aca- initially envisioned programmers at the heart mer child prodigy. When Penny complains that demic home. Still, a slip during the pilot, and of a sitcom. But sitting at a computer all day a bad relationship lasted 4 years, “as long as its Pasadena setting, obviously hint at Caltech, doesn’t make for great physical comedy. high school,” Sheldon, perplexed, replies, “It whose walkways and fountains grace Physicists, however, write on whiteboards, took you 4 years to get through high school?” Numb3rs’s “CalSci.” and that visual element had appeal: “We real- He’s even less tactful to non-Ph.D. engineers, Science is vital to the show but not at the ized this was a better way to show somebody calling them “Oompa-Loompas of science,” a expense of humor, Saltzberg must always working with their mind,” Prady says. knowing jab at the academic pecking order. remind himself. At a rehearsal, he catches that Sheldon’s lack of social graces and other an equation he provided with accompanying Leonard: “Sounds like a breakthrough, should quirks have led to speculation that he must Feynman diagram appears scarily complicated I ask Science to hold the cover?” have Asperger syndrome, an autism spectrum but is actually too basic to cause physics post- Sheldon: “It’s time travel, Leonard. I will have disorder commonly assumed to be prevalent docs the terror the scene requires. The writers Downloaded from already done that.” gamely try out new dialogue, but nothing clicks. They finally Some episodes of The Big ask Saltzberg to provide a new, Bang Theory could inspire an more challenging equation, evening of studying math or with the same solution as the physics. Saltzberg likes to old one so no dialogue has to be http://science.sciencemag.org/ inject scripts with terms such changed. Mercifully, before as Casimir effect, molecular Saltzberg has to improvise, positronium, and giant everyone realizes that all it magnetoresistance (the subject takes is modifying the charac- of the 2007 Nobel Prize in ters’ reactions: It’s an engineer physics). “I go for stuff that who’s most frightened. sounds really fake—that you Although Saltzberg always think is Hollywood science but winces when he realizes he’s let find out not only is it real, it’s something wrong slip in, he’s topical,” he says. also amused that even his most accurate contri- on April 8, 2021 Saltzberg views the show as a tool for sci- butions come off as fake. “If I look on the ence education: PBS’s N OVA with rim shots. In character. Jim Parsons (Sheldon) as the Doppler [Internet] message boards, there’s still com- Effect, Johnny Galecki (Leonard) as Frodo, Kunal During an awkward date, Leonard gets an olive Nayyar (Raj) as Thor, and Simon Helberg (Howard) as plaints—no matter how right you get the sci- to rotate inside a glass—and corrects Penny, Robin Hood.