A new instrument appears to have come without a critical part, but no one’s sure if it really didn’t arrive or if someone threw it out with the packing. Is that $2k widget worth dumpster-diving in the med school dumpster for?
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Hilarity ensues!
aug 28, 2025, 11:53 pm • 2 0 • view
That's what grad students are for.
aug 29, 2025, 10:15 am • 0 0 • view
For getting this kind of drama right I will even let them continue with the idea that labs have moody indirect lighting
aug 28, 2025, 11:35 pm • 49 0 • view
Big Bang Theory often had correct physics written on the whiteboard. And that time drunk Leonard threw the beer bottle down the elevator shaft, timed it, and calculated the height was extremely accurate drunk physicist
aug 28, 2025, 11:38 pm • 56 0 • view
It's easy to get accurate equations on a blackboard — you just hire a physicist to write them. (Which BBT did.) This is sort of the laziest form of expert consulting — the equivalent of getting a historian to consult on period-appropriate clothing, as opposed to a real integration with the writing.
aug 29, 2025, 10:05 am • 4 0 • view
They'd also have characters switch specialism at the drop of a hat iirc, which is not how it works in my experience.
aug 29, 2025, 10:08 am • 3 0 • view
And yet, everything from coffee cups to t-shirts to other shows usually just throws gobbledygook up there, often not even real mathematical notation. I didn't say it was perfect, just far better than most other things
aug 29, 2025, 2:55 pm • 3 0 • view
The science writer for the show kept a blog for a while. (Looks like it ended in season 7). thebigblogtheory.wordpress.com/about/
aug 29, 2025, 1:40 am • 3 0 • view
But inaccurate academia. And kind of geared to make fun of nerds for the benefit of non-nerds.
aug 28, 2025, 11:53 pm • 29 0 • view
My wife asked me once why I hated that show. I just said “they’re laughing at us, not with us.”
aug 29, 2025, 2:45 am • 3 0 • view
As the only female physics major in two different colleges, it was pretty on point. What you see as making fun of antics- we saw as fun 🤷 The female part? Pretty on point as well. Always lovely when there’s a guy who tears up if I get a higher test score…
aug 29, 2025, 2:36 am • 0 0 • view
IIRC, there was a season finale where some of them sabotaged the fourth guy’s NSF grant out of spite - and they were still all “haha, just quirky science friends” afterwards. Boggling.
aug 28, 2025, 11:58 pm • 7 0 • view
Boggling? I think you mean
aug 29, 2025, 9:58 am • 0 0 • view
I mean, the sabotaging isn't crazy. But true, that would engender a lifelong blood feud
aug 29, 2025, 12:15 am • 6 0 • view
Yeah - that’s not a “forgive and forget” thing.
aug 29, 2025, 12:16 am • 5 0 • view
Not to mention some kind of serious consequences for the saboteur, for breaking GFE if nothing else.
aug 29, 2025, 12:18 am • 3 0 • view
also unpleasant about women
aug 28, 2025, 11:55 pm • 27 0 • view
It got better though, when Lorre adjusted more to the times.
aug 29, 2025, 12:44 am • 2 0 • view
I gave up before that, I guess
aug 29, 2025, 12:51 am • 0 0 • view
In my experience, that last part was extremely representative of grad school
aug 29, 2025, 12:16 am • 3 0 • view