S03E14 - The Einstein Approximation

No: 54  |  Season: 3   Episode: 14  |  Air Date: 2010-02-01  |  Runtime: mins

Summary

Sheldon wreaks havoc when he is stumped by a difficult physics question.

Director and Writers

Director: Mark Cendrowski
Writers: Story by: Lee Aronsohn & Dave Goetsch & Steve Holland / Teleplay by: Chuck Lorre & Steven Molaro & Eric Kaplan

Script

Script: S03E14 - The Einstein Approximation

Quotes

Howard: How long has he been stuck?
Leonard: Intellectually, about thirty hours. Emotionally, about twenty-nine years.
Sheldon: (muttering) The alkyl cell contains two carbon atoms. The interior angle of a hexagon's one hundred and twenty degrees.
Howard: Have you tried rebooting him?
Leonard: No, I think it's a firmware problem.

Penny: Hey, guys. Sorry you had to wait, but we're swamped.
(notices the food on the table)
Penny: What's this?
Leonard: Uh, Sheldon took our order.
Penny: Sheldon doesn't work here!
Leonard: Well, honey, not to complain, but we were starting to think you didn't either.

Penny: (Sheldon is using his hands like a spyglass) What is he doing now?
Leonard: Hmm, he's either isolating the terms of his formula and examining them individually, or... looking for the alligator that swallowed his hand after Peter Pan cut it off.
Sheldon: Captain Hook's hand was eaten by a crocodile, not an alligator. If you're going to mock me, at least get your facts straight.
Leonard: Aye, aye, captain.

Sheldon: By the way, I was watching you sleep for a moment, and I noticed that your snoring seems to be worse when you're on your back.
Penny: No, Leonard doesn't snore.
Sheldon: No, I wasn't talking to Leonard.
Leonard: Told you.

Leonard: (about Sheldon) Penny, I told you if you don't put him in his crate at night he just runs around the apartment.

Penny: (man cackling) Leonard. You're giggling in your sleep.
Leonard: It's not me. It's my new ring tone. The Joker. From Batman.
Penny: Well, it creeps me out.
Leonard: Me too. But I paid 3 bucks for it.

Sheldon: (Serves Howard) Alright, one bacon cheeseburger, breaking two Jewish dietary restrictions simultaneously - kudos...
(Serves Raj)
Sheldon: ... and Beer-battered fish and chips - Now, here's your tartar sauce. I also brought you salsa. It's a little unconventional, but I think you'll like it. It's zingy...
(Serves Leonard)
Sheldon: And for you, factory burrito grande, no cheese, no sour cream, no ugly consequences from your lactose intolerance. Bon app?tit.
Leonard: Hang on. Black beans, not pinto beans?
Sheldon: Yes.
Leonard: Double guacamole?
Sheldon: Of course.
Leonard: No cilantro?
Sheldon: Nope.
Leonard: Lettuce shredded, not chopped?
Sheldon: Yes.
Leonard: You understand why I'm doing this to you?
Sheldon: I do.
Leonard: That'll be all.

Penny: Whatcha doing?
Sheldon: I'm attempting to view my work as a fleeting peripheral image so as to engage the superior colliculus of my brain.
Penny: Interesting. I usually just have coffee.

Sandy: So, Mister Cooper, you're looking for a job.
Sheldon: A menial job. Like yours.
Sandy: Why, thank you for noticing. I'm menial employee of the month.

Sheldon: I need to determine where in this swamp of unbalanced formulas squatteth the toad of truth.

Penny: Have you been up all night?
Sheldon: Is it morning?
Penny: Yes.
Sheldon: Then I've been up all night.

Raj: OK, just to be clear, roller-skating was my idea, and I'm very unhappy that you turned it into a double date, and I hope you both fall on your asses and break your coccyxes!
Sheldon: The plural of coccyx is coccyges.

Penny: Sheldon, what do you want?
Sheldon: I came to tell you, I've got the answer.
Leonard: Really? You figured out the graphene problem?
Sheldon: No, I'm still hopelessly stuck on that, but I've figured out how to figure it out.
Penny: Hey, you know, Leonard, I know I said I could handle your roommate, but I was wrong; we're going to have to break up.
Leonard: What are you talking about?
Sheldon: Einstein.
Leonard: Yeah, I'm gonna need a little more than that.
Sheldon: Albert Einstein.
Leonard: Keep going...

Sheldon: When Albert Einstein came up with Special Relativity, he was working at the Patent Office.
Leonard: So you're going to go work at the Patent Office?
Sheldon: Don't be absurd; that's in Washington. You know I could never live in a city the streets are laid out in a wheel and spoke pattern.

Leonard: (Leonard gets a call in the middle of the night about Sheldon's antics) Sheldon's escaped and is terrorizing the village.

(having figured out the solution to his physics problem, Sheldon turns to leave the Cheesecake Factory, leaving a mess of food on the floor)
Penny: Sheldon, where are you going? Aren't you going to clean this up?
Sheldon: I'm sorry, I don't work here.

Notes and Trivia

Just before the scene near the end set in the roller disco, when the atoms are shown rotating, one of the orbiting electrons transforms into the glitter ball of the roller disco.

Near the start of the episode, when a frustrated Sheldon throws his whiteboard out the window, you can clearly see the Pasadena City Hall out the window.

When Sheldon serves Howard his bacon cheeseburger, he says it breaks two Jewish dietary restrictions at one time. The first, eating bacon, is widely known, but the second is more obscure: it's the prohibition against eating meat and milk (or any dairy product) together.

Goofs

None

Cast

Johnny GaleckiLeonard Hofstadter
Jim ParsonsSheldon Cooper
Kaley CuocoPenny
Simon HelbergHoward Wolowitz
Kunal NayyarRaj Koothrappali
Melissa RauchBernadette Rostenkowski
Yeardley SmithSandy
Kevin BriefGlen