Tuesdays are thai takeout night. Photo: Michael Yarish/CBS
They love comic books, costumes, video games, and sci-fi in all forms of media, but what are the other recurring themes, jokes, and life experiences that make up Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, Raj, Penny, Amy, Bernadette, Stuart, and their Big Bang Theory characters we’ve been following for nine seasons? Just as each of those characters can be largely defined by his or her eccentricities (we could write a book on Sheldon alone), some of those quirks also point to how much each of them has evolved throughout the seasons (even if some of them still have a significant way to go). Here’s our rundown.
Schrödinger’s Cat
Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger’s thought experiment, which Sheldon uses in the season-one finale, “The Tangerine Factor,” to help Penny decide whether or not to turn her friendship with Leonard into a romantic relationship. The potential romance could be considered either a success or a failure until she actually pursues it, Sheldon explains, just as Schrödinger’s cat could be considered alive or dead until the box is opened. After kissing Leonard during the first date, Penny declares, “The cat’s alive!” Penny understands the theory well enough to try to explain it to another date in season two, while Sheldon applies Schrödinger’s Cat to his own friendship with Leonard in season five’s “The Russian Rocket Reaction.” In what he dubs “Schrödinger’s Friendship,” Sheldon is considering Leonard both his friend and his enemy, until Leonard makes a decision about attending a party at the home of Wil Wheaton, who was then on Sheldon’s enemies list.
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