740 do,” says Bill Prady,who alongwithChuck it. “I can’toverestimate hisvaluewhat to we he even has a director’s chairwithhisnameon Saltzberg’s presence is regularly feltonthe set; supplying theequationsdisplayedshow, the on sure labequipmentlookssuitably to haphazard show fromtheinitialepisode. From making Los Angeles (UCLA), who’s the with been David Saltzberg University the of of California, physicist experimental to thanks particle part, highly science, accuratescienceforthemost those charactersandsituationsrevolvearound where theshow breaksthemoldisthatmostof ters insituationsbothoddandmundane.But ofplacingquirky,formula exaggerated charac- door, blonde the and bombshell whomoves in next just quarksthatcanbestrangeandcharming. new sitcomoftheseason.” Apparently, it isn’t Post show the foranotheryear. The enough forCBStoquickly renew now people watch iteachweek— Theory Bang network CBSpremiered TV American the October, last work seemsalmostasfanciful. Yet uation comedybasedontheir nativeuniverses. Butapopularsit- weird with conceptssuchasalter- Physicists may benotoriousforcomingup Sheldon: Leonard: Sheldon: tomakethemathwork.” dimensions 26 Leonard: SCIENCE AND SOCIETY AND SCIENCE thanks to aid fromSaltzbergDavid physicist friends and comedy surprisehit,thenew TV A Talk NerdytoMe Centering ontwo malephysicspostdocs ’s critic Tom Shalescallsit“thefunniest The BigBang Theory “In what universe?!” “I didn’tthem. They’reinvent“I there.” “All ofthem. That’spoint.” the “At least I didn’t invent to have , andabout9million The Big follows thesitcom Washington Online sciencemag.org online. Theory A 08VOL320 2008 MAY 9 The BigBang Theory of For videoclips , visitthisstory The BigBang Bang Theory Bang Odd couple. ously—and Saltzberg is surelyonly the particle prime-time comedyhastaken thisseri- science sults forthreeshows. Pasadena, in example, for sion Laboratory con- physician.Kevin GrazierofNASA’sPropul- Jet science, bothforplotelementsandtheocca- mas suchas rent shows, TV particularly forensiccrimedra- fessor Lewis’s humor,geek from Jerry createdtheshow.Lorre Still, Hollywood hasatraditionofexploiting to the The BigBang Theory ’s co-creator. a Los Los a Angeles–area scientistor or television canbeaperkfor film ics. Given allofthat,workingon of Council Teachers ofMathemat- Texas andtheNational Instruments teacher’sworksheets providedby brother, even is usedasthebasisfor mathematician helpshisFBIagent sional laugh. Physicist DavidSaltzberg ( Revenge oftheNerds CSI plumbs scienceforlaughs, P , draw regularly onmathand u b SCIENCE l i s h e d b Numb3rs y

A A A is the first timea first the is S The NuttyPro- www.sciencemag.org . Many. cur- , in which in , a left ) andBillPrady, “We areyou;we love you.” depict them,begentleandpatient,” he says. how with communityisconcerned we tific Theory Bang whole episode.Pradystressesthat show’s detractors,henotes,have never seen a putative sexism andnerdism.Mostofthe encounters people offended by show’s the simply attendingaparty, Saltzberg inevitably Kavli the at Institute for Theoretical Physicsor nerds. Whether giving atalkaboutthesitcom physicists mocks and as Klingon-speaking charges thatithastoofewwomen scientists ting-edge researchgetsinjectedintotheshow. set of spoke with him and Prady, andpaidavisittothe physicist toadviseasitcom. falls asleep.Leonard’sfalls subject matter wassug- Leonard’s talkonsupersolidity—atwhich she tain. She’s loyal a friend, even attending whodon’t have aperiodictableshower cur- ress who istheirbridgetotheworld of people the twophysicists, andPenny, an actress/wait- joke, uine was it and ontheair.” gen- weeksprovided he ago, uswithaterrific, word we need,” Prady says.“A coupleof Saltzberg is“righttheretogivenew the us Burbank fortheshow’s evening tapings. advance and then drives week a once in to Saltzberg generallyover looks thescripts in vet to local a for ing last-minute changes. pickedby up CBS,theproducerswent search- show’s unaired pilot. show the When was Hawaiian astrophysicist who’d the on helped berswould callacoincidence.” people unfamiliarwiththelawoflargenum- Sheldon: cameos on Weird science. The Big The pairdefendedtheshowagainst The sitcomfeaturesLeonardandSheldon, Saltzberg gothisunusualgigviaafriend, a The BigBang Theory “ This isoneofthosecircumstances The BigBang Theory radiation” into dialogueeven as “softcomponent ofcosmic physics such incorporating terms chops,accuratelyhave scientific it’s clearthatPradyandhiswriters “tired andmean-spirited”—but Chicago Tribune TV criticMaureenRyanofthe The BigBang Theory dents doeveryweek. as colleagues,friends,andstu- accompanied Saltzberg set, the to dent MattMecklenburg,who’d week,” stu- inthiscasegraduate by gested show’s the “geekofthe means noillwill.“Ifthescien- One can argue aboutwhether Real physicsandmathmake , to learn how , tolearn cut- Science . called itsjokes is funny— The Big recently

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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. ence, there’s going to be some fraction of peo- and likely most viewers, that centripetal, not ple who think it’s wrong!” centrifugal, force explains the trick. in scientists and computer programmers. Saltzberg has found scientific allies for his Leonard, played by Johnny Galecki, is the Although Prady concedes that Sheldon fits defense of the show—and a few fans of his experimentalist who longs for Penny and has a the diagnosis, he rejects the idea that this is the own. “Our outreach department really enjoys disastrous fling with Leslie, a brilliant lab- ultimate in negative geek stereotypes, saying watching the show; the science adviser is very mate, who spends part of their tryst correcting the character is an affectionate composite of good,” says Rebecca Thompson-Flagg, public an equation. In the episode in which Leonard the programmers he used to know. outreach specialist for the American Physical first asks Leslie for a date—“a biosocial Saltzberg also doesn’t believe the show Society. (The society plans to send the show exploration with a neurochemical overlay,” he paints a depressing picture of scientists. “I am material with its logo for use.) Science writer calls it—the two test how long it takes a pow- willing to discuss it with anyone who has seen a Jennifer Ouellette recently penned an op-ed in erful lab laser to heat up soup. couple of episodes,” he says, noting that a Symmetry, a magazine for particle physicists, Leslie is the only female researcher on the UCLA physics student who recently visited the calling on its readers to embrace the show. show, a complaint Prady and Saltzberg hear set remarked that she wanted to be just like the (David Harris, the physicist who is editor of often from women, whether scientists or jour- show’s characters. “This is our attempt to show the magazine, loves the show.) “I bought a nalists. Prady promises that more female sci- our own lives,” Prady says. “My father-in-law T-shirt at the American Physical Society that entists will appear. “The [female-male] ratio is a brilliant pediatric rheumatologist, but he is said, ‘Flirt harder, I’m a physicist,’ ” Saltzberg is actually higher on the show than it is in my capable of saying, ‘That’s a very interesting says. “I don’t know why we should hold televi- part of the field, which is pretty bad,” story, but who is this Tom Cruise?’” sion up to a different standard than we hold Saltzberg unhappily adds. ourselves.” –KAREN HEYMAN The show’s writers saw that firsthand Sheldon: “That’s my work. It’s just some Karen Heyman is a freelance writer in Santa Monica,

CREDITS: ICHIRO/GETTY IMAGES; WARNER BROS. TELEVISION ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION BROS. CREDITS: ICHIRO/GETTY IMAGES; WARNER when they toured UCLA labs. Prady met a quantum mechanics. A little string theory California.

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