Now, it’s safe to say that The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon, Leonard, Bernadette, Amy, Raj and Howard are operating on an entirely different plane of intellectual existence than many of us. It’s a wonder that the super-smart group have as much love and respect for Penny as they do, considering that she’s a mere mortal in a group of geniuses.
Heck, half the time Sheldon is being snarky about the fact that Howard is ‘only’ a brilliant engineer. As expected, then, a lot of the show’s jokes fall into the ‘they’re using absurd jargon for laughs’ category. Even so, though, some of the show’s science-centric humor does make perfect sense for viewers without MENSA memberships. Here are some of the funniest examples.
10 “It Must Be Humbling To Suck On So Many Different Levels.”
In their downtime, the Big Bang boys often like to kick back with comic books, video games or squirreling away their spare cash in the hollowed-out buttocks of Green Lantern action figures. Being the brilliant men they are, though, they sometimes prefer more intellectual pastimes.
In one memorable instance, Sheldon and Leonard are engaging in a little three-dimensional chess. Unsurprisingly, Dr. Cooper makes short work of his opponent, before rubbing salt into the wound by quipping, “it must be humbling to suck on so many different levels.” With the three-dimensional nature of the game, it’s a clever little science jibe that those of us without advanced knowledge of physics can grasp.
9 “For You, No Charge!”
Hold on to your funnybones, because here comes Dr. Cooper again with a genuine physics joke: “A neutron walks into a bar and asks how much for a drink. The bartender replies, “for you, no charge!”
Cut down to nuts and bolts, this is a little physics 101 that most of us could probably grasp. We’ve all heard of protons, electrons and neutrons. The former two have equal and opposite charge, but neutrons (you guessed it) have no charge. Compared to a lot of the lines that come from Sheldon’s mouth, this one’s surprisingly easy to follow.
8 “Is That Like All Thumbs Are Fingers But Not All Fingers Are Thumbs?”
When there are this many brilliant scientific minds in a sitcom, there also have to be regular, non-brilliant people to keep those geniuses grounded. That way, both groups can exasperate each other and keep the laughs coming.
Penny’s ex-boyfriend Zack Johnson often tested the group’s patience, being super slow on the uptake. In “The Toast Derivation,” Sheldon is explaining a tricky scientific concept: it’s fundamentally incorrect to call a jacuzzi (which isn’t a Jacuzzi) a hot tub, as hot tub is the generic term and Jacuzzi is a brand of hot tub. Zack thinks for a moment before asking, “is that like all thumbs are fingers but not all fingers are thumbs?” Sheldon is shocked that he grasped exactly what he meant, conceding, “surprisingly, yes.”
7 “I’m Sorry, Do You Mean The Guy Or The ‘Juy?’”
If the whole jacuzzi/hot tub controversy wasn’t enough of a scientific minefield to delve into, try this on for size: is GIF pronounced ‘gif’ or ‘jif?’
The hot debate comes up in “The Fortification Implementation.” Leonard insists that, as the G in the acronym stands for ‘graphics,’ it should be a hard G, so ‘gif.’ Raj then counters this with the point that “the guy who invented it says it’s jif.” Unconvinced, Howard chimes in with a snarky, “I’m sorry, do you mean the guy or the ‘juy?’” It’s all very scientific, but for once, we can easily follow the gang’s train of thought.
6 “Smart? I’d Have To Lose 60 IQ Points To Be Classified As Smart!”
Our old friend Dr. Sheldon Cooper is a lot of things (a lot), but modest certainly isn’t one of them. Simply knowing he’s a genius isn’t enough. He wants everyone to know he’s more of a genius than his genius friends, and he often goes to great lengths to prove it.
When he’s belittled by Leonard’s latest girlfriend, fellow scientist Lesley Winkle, he declares her his arch-enemy and refuses to stay in the apartment while she’s there. Out on the stairs with his laptop, he meets Penny and announces (in true Sheldon style) that he preferred her relationship with Leonard so she should get right back to it. Penny starts to explain that somebody as smart as Sheldon must understand that feelings don’t work that way, before he takes offense at the word ‘smart’ and brushes her off.
5 “If He Were Any Bigger, He’d Have Moons Orbiting Him.”
As every fan of the show knows, Leonard was smitten with Penny from the very first moment he met her. From there, the relationship between the two was a Ross and Rachel-esque roller-coaster that eventually culminated in their marriage and the revelation (in the very last episode) that they are expecting.
Before that, of course, Leonard had hulking ex-boyfriends of Penny’s to be envious of. One of these men was Kurt, who the gang meet at Penny’s Halloween party in “The Middle-Earth Paradigm.” Completely intimidated by the man at first, Leonard makes a clever-yet-understandable science joke about his size (behind his back, of course).
4 “Sheldon, We Have To Do This!”
As difficult as Leonard found Sheldon to live with, the pair remained close friends throughout the show’s long run. They definitely had some quite spectacular arguments at times, though, such as the one in “The Cooper-Hofstadter Polarization.”
In this episode, the duo discover that they’ve been invited to present some scientific findings at a conference. Leonard is all for it, but Sheldon refuses to do so. “Sheldon, we have to do this,” Leonard insists, but Dr. Cooper, taking things super literally as always, responds, “no, we don’t. We have to take in nourishment, expel waste and inhale enough oxygen to keep our cells from dying. Everything else is optional.”
3 “One Cries Because One Is Sad.”
Sheldon Cooper has been accused of being a giant praying mantis, an extra-terrestrial and “not a real boy.” All of this stems from the fact that he takes a stoic, literal approach to understanding human emotions.
As we saw in the last entry, that’s definitely not one of his strong points. He tries his best to study and explain emotions, though. In “The Gorilla Experiment,” Penny asks him to try and teach he physics, which… goes as well as you can imagine. At one point, Penny starts to cry, and when Sheldon asks why, she says, “because I’m stupid!” Dr. Cooper’s response? “That's no reason to cry. One cries because one is sad. For example, I cry because others are stupid, and it makes me sad.” Way to boil the human experience down to science as always, Sheldon.
2 "I Don't Care For Perchloroethylene And I Don't Like Glychol Ether."
Here’s an interesting pick. On the face of it, those are some darn scientific words (for cleaning products, essentially) that we mere mortals could easily be utterly flummoxed by. On the other hand, though, the fundamentals of the joke are completely clear. As Sheldon explains, Amy was at the dry cleaners and sent this brilliantly pun-tastic joke his way.
Yes, Sheldon, we totally get that ether sounds like either. Even if you hadn’t explained that to us, and if we couldn’t pronounce perchloroethylene, we’d have appreciated this one just as much. L.O.L. indeed.
1 “Look At You, Retaining Facts From A Nature Show.”
Over the course of the show, Penny’s role was often to try to help keep the group a little grounded. Inject a little pop culture into their scientific lives. At the same time, though, however hard she tried to block it out, she retained some of the science that came with associating with them.
In “The Conjugal Configuration,” Leonard and Penny are discussing Amy’s poor, downtrodden father. Feeling sorry for him, Penny states, "after they had Amy, should’ve just eaten him and been done with it.” Leonard’s impressed response to Penny’s likening Mrs. Fowler to an animal that engages in sexual cannibalism says it all.
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