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The Man Who Gets The Science Right On 'The Big Bang Theory'

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Re: The Man Who Gets The Science Right On 'The Big Bang Theory'

#21

Post by beloch »

The show gets some interesting aspects of physics culture right. For example, there's the chauvinism of theorists over experimentalists. I was a bit surprised by this when I first encountered it, but I soon came to realize it's probably motivated by jealously and rejection. Experimentalists operate under the constraint of having to realize a test of one theory and stick with that same theory for months or years at a time, but they get all the cool toys plus the potential for real "Eureaka!" moments (even if those are exceedingly rare). Most theorists would never admit to being jealous of this but, at the same time, they cannot deny being jealous when their colleagues get to work with experimentalists. There are a lot more theorists out there creating material to test than there are labs able to test material! Theorists need to develop tough skin to handle all the times their theories are dismissed as "uninteresting" by experimentalists who define "interesting" as "something we can test". To make matters worse, many experimentalists are also damned good theorists. They're the physics-world equivalent of geniuses who are also first-class jocks!

It makes sense for Sheldon to be the ultimate theorist chauvinist since he works with string theory, which is, so far, not of much interest to experimentalists because its so impractical to test! Salzburg is definitely a theorist, and it shows. The whiteboards may be correct most of the time, but the lab scenes are just painfully bad! All they really amount to is, "Hey look! Lasers!". Having a consultant around to check your white-boards is fine, but they should send the writers to intern in an experimental lab for a bit if they ever want to move past seeing the world through Sheldon's eyes.

P.S. I specifically watched this show because, when you tell people you work in physics, BBT is the first thing they think of. If there's a TV show specifically about your profession it's surprisingly awkward to be completely ignorant of it!

Re: The Man Who Gets The Science Right On 'The Big Bang Theory'

#22

Post by changdizzle »

eco wrote: post #5
novum wrote: post #3

As an aside, I was watching BBT just yesterday (on a long plane ride with limited entertainment options) and I was reminded how uncomfortably awkward it makes me feel. In short, the core problem is that the characters are not sympathetic -- you're meant to laugh at them, not with them, to say nothing of the show's terribly backwards gender roles. This essay was quite popular a while back and summarizes all this and m…

I once heard Big Bang Theory described as "blackface for nerds"* and it made me suddenly realize why I was so uncomfortable watching that show. * I hope no one thinks I'm trying to trivialize blackface which was, of course, far worse than what Big Bang Theory is doing.

I prefer another saying I've heard - Big Bang Theory is a dumb show about smart people, and Arrested Development is a smart show about dumb people

Re: The Man Who Gets The Science Right On 'The Big Bang Theory'

#23

Post by Camillo »

lionheart wrote: post #4
novum wrote: post #3

As an aside, I was watching BBT just yesterday (on a long plane ride with limited entertainment options) and I was reminded how uncomfortably awkward it makes me feel. In short, the core problem is that the characters are not sympathetic -- you're meant to laugh at them, not with them, to say nothing of the show's terribly backwards gender roles. This essay was quite popular a while back and summarizes all this and m…

I don't know. In my personal opinion those critiques are overly critical. My circle of friends is pretty much exactly like the main characters in the show. Nerdy, 20-something PhD guys that play board games and watch sci-fi. A few were actually almost as bad as Raj in not being able to say a word when a woman was around. And I love the show. Loved it as soon as it came out just because it reminded me so much of my fr…

I think the appeal of BBT is that some people like to see a reflection of their microcosm: they like to see people like them, situations like the ones they experience, references to things they like, etc.. It makes them feel relevant and part of an in-group.

It's the same appeal that xkcd has. It has been called "referential humor", but I don't think it should be classified as humor, although for some people it seems to be a completely satisfying humor surrogate. Indeed, BBT and xkcd are both full of nerd references, devoid of actual humor, and enormously popular.

Re: The Man Who Gets The Science Right On 'The Big Bang Theory'

#24

Post by SeanLuke »

BrianEatWorld wrote: post #19
SeanLuke wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edit 2: Can we at least agree that laugh tracks are awful, even on otherwise-phenomenal shows (Seinfeld)? BBT does not use a laugh track.

You are right that its not canned laughter, but a laugh track can more generally refer to a separate track for the audience's laughter. This can be edited to compensate for jokes that require repeated takes or have its level's adjusted just like the rest of the sound in the show. I don't watch the show, so I can't say for sure, but its possible that the way the laugh track is mixed makes it more obvious than other sh…

> I don't watch the show, so I can't say for sure, but its possible that the way the laugh track is mixed makes it more obvious than other shows, such as 90s sitcoms.

Chuck Lorre, the producer for the show, is really ticked off at people who say that BBT has a laugh track, and has been very adamant that it does not.

Re: The Man Who Gets The Science Right On 'The Big Bang Theory'

#25

Post by warfangle »

stormbrew wrote: post #20
warfangle wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put it in context of a high school / middle school lunchroom...

Where, in spite of that, your teachers were probably pushing you to perform, and when you got out you probably had no trouble getting into a good school which made it more likely for you to get a good job. Kids are cruel, but their social order is not the real world. In the real world nerds are not a disadvantaged, let alone oppressed, group.

Absolutely. Its history stings no less for some, however.

Re: The Man Who Gets The Science Right On 'The Big Bang Theory'

#26

Post by millstone »

objclxt wrote: post #14
novum wrote: post #3

As an aside, I was watching BBT just yesterday (on a long plane ride with limited entertainment options) and I was reminded how uncomfortably awkward it makes me feel. In short, the core problem is that the characters are not sympathetic -- you're meant to laugh at them, not with them, to say nothing of the show's terribly backwards gender roles. This essay was quite popular a while back and summarizes all this and m…

> Can we at least agree that laugh tracks are awful, even on otherwise-phenomenal shows (Seinfeld)? No. Multi-camera sitcoms with live audiences are very, very different in writing, tone, and end product to single camera comedies. They both serve different purposes. Shooting a sitcom in front of a studio audience radically alters the pacing, the way jokes are told, and the setup (you're inherently constrained to fewe…

Can you elaborate on why Frasier would have been a far worse show without the laugh track?

One show which benefited from a laugh track was Married With Children, because it was an unapologetically trashy show about trashy people, and the audience hoots and jeers contributed to its low-brow atmosphere.

But the Big Bang Theory suffers horribly for its laugh track. It's not just the disproportionate reaction to jokes, it's the laughter at things that aren't jokes at all. See for example this egregious example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN3qn92R0SE , in which the audience starts cracking up after "My new computer came with Windows 7."

Re: The Man Who Gets The Science Right On 'The Big Bang Theory'

#27

Post by millstone »

changdizzle wrote: post #22
eco wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once heard Big Bang Theory described as "blackface for nerds"* and it made me suddenly realize why I was so uncomfortable watching that show. * I hope no one thinks I'm trying to trivialize blackface which was, of course, far worse than what Big Bang Theory is doing.

I prefer another saying I've heard - Big Bang Theory is a dumb show about smart people, and Arrested Development is a smart show about dumb people

I've heard it expressed as "The Big Bang theory is a dumb person's idea of what a show for smart people would be like."

Re: The Man Who Gets The Science Right On 'The Big Bang Theory'

#28

Post by 1123581321 »

stormbrew wrote: post #8
eco wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once heard Big Bang Theory described as "blackface for nerds"* and it made me suddenly realize why I was so uncomfortable watching that show. * I hope no one thinks I'm trying to trivialize blackface which was, of course, far worse than what Big Bang Theory is doing.

I really wish people would stop saying this. Even if you don't mean to trivialize what blackface actually was, that is basically the net effect. It's a terrible analogy on pretty much every level.

When the analogy is a worse thing than what is being likened, it is not trivialized. The thing being likened is moved to the level of the analogy and compared to see if the analogy is apt.

For example, "my teacher is a Nazi" does not make anyone think Nazis are only as bad as teachers, only that the student is overreacting (comparing the teacher to something that is on another level, i.e., worse.) The inverse, "Nazis were basically strict teachers," is a horrible thing to say as it brings Nazis down to the level of something benign.

To say The Big Bang Theory is blackface does not make a person wonder if blacks were actually only mistreated as much as nerds. It makes a person wonder if nerds are systemically exploited and mocked by social superiors. The answer is that in a very limited way, this happens, but it happens in an extremely irrelevant part of life (school) and nerds go on to run the world and are unquestionably full equals, possibly superiors, of more athletic people socially and politically. At no point here do we think blacks are only as mistreated as nerds.

On the other hand, saying something like "being black before the Civil Rights movement was like being the nerd in high school" is obviously offensive because we are bringing the black experience to the level of the analogy, being a nerd, and then making the comparison, and it's not even close.

Re: The Man Who Gets The Science Right On 'The Big Bang Theory'

#29

Post by noonespecial »

SeanLuke wrote: post #16

What baffles me is that David Salzberg is a professor works tirelessly to get the science correct on BBT, and yet this gentleman was unable to correct the incredible, mind-bogglingly bad episode "The Tenure Turbulence", where every possible aspect of tenure appears to come from some alternate universe unrelated to Earth. This episode is so far beyond wrong I don't know where to start. David knows how tenure works: in…

There's a great big whopping difference between when your consultant says "change what's written on that board in the background" and "change the whole plot of the episode, that's not how the world works".

I'm sure he told them, I'm sure they know; but the whole plot turned on it.

Sometimes when you realize that superman flying around in space is impossible from a thermodynamic perspective no matter how "super" he is, you just gotta shrug and say "dude, he's superman".

Re: The Man Who Gets The Science Right On 'The Big Bang Theory'

#30

Post by saraid216 »

Camillo wrote: post #23
lionheart wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. In my personal opinion those critiques are overly critical. My circle of friends is pretty much exactly like the main characters in the show. Nerdy, 20-something PhD guys that play board games and watch sci-fi. A few were actually almost as bad as Raj in not being able to say a word when a woman was around. And I love the show. Loved it as soon as it came out just because it reminded me so much of my fr…

I think the appeal of BBT is that some people like to see a reflection of their microcosm: they like to see people like them, situations like the ones they experience, references to things they like, etc.. It makes them feel relevant and part of an in-group. It's the same appeal that xkcd has. It has been called "referential humor", but I don't think it should be classified as humor, although for some people it seems…

> It has been called "referential humor", but I don't think it should be classified as humor, although for some people it seems to be a completely satisfying humor surrogate.

I call them "tribal markers".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics

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