S03.E17: An Academic Crime and a More Romantic Taco Bell

[Guest]

1 hour ago, SnarkySheep said:

I wasn't clear...why was everyone getting a trophy anyways? Did they win some kind of tournament, or was it a participation trophy? Because I don't really remember a lot of that going on in 1990.

It was a participation trophy. They were common in California at that time. 

[meep.meep]

They are in Texas

 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, meep.meep said:

They are in Texas

 

I know. I have no clue if a participation trophies  are realistic for the region but they are for the time period. 

[Gothish520]

On 3/8/2020 at 5:31 PM, rmontro said:

I don't see any evidence that Dr. Sturgis is shorting Sheldon on credit.  Sheldon made a contribution, but Dr. Sturgis said he had been working on that paper for 20 years.  We don't really know what is in the paper exactly.  Sheldon's suggestion may have been a key point, but I'm not sure that entitles him to co-authorship.  It appears Dr. Linkletter agreed.

As far as I remember, Sheldon has not had a paper published at this point.  You would think he would be happy with his name being published in an article, even if it is "just" in a footnote.  Or short of that, he could be happy with knowing that he helped a friend.

Oh, Sheldon is nowhere near being capable of those feelings...

Spoiler

yet.

 

[mlonsidale]

To be fair, Sheldon deserves more than a footnote. Idea is invaluable in theoretical physics. Unlike biology or chemistry that requires years of data collecting, theoretical physics is more thought-based and plagiarism can come relatively easier. Dr.Sturgis rewrote the whole paper, meaning that Sheldon’s suggestions subverted the conclusion drawn from his past 7 years of work, (Honestly he should be ashamed of that as a researcher) and he did not make himself a fool in front of the whole physics community thanks to Sheldon. Yes people make suggestions to each other all the time in science, but if the whole idea is new, it’s not ok to take it and claim it’s yours because you have been in this field working on this problem for years. 

[John Potts]

While I can't speak to the details of scientific papers, I totally sided with Dr Sturgis on this one. I did like that, from the start, he only described it as a step towards a Quantum Field Theory, because it makes sense that he would only be providing one step on the path to a theory. And I definitely took his side when it came to credit. Dr Sturgis has been working on this theory for months/years - Sheldon worked on it for one day. Yes, he made an important correction which deserves to be acknowledged (which I'm sure John did), but he didn't deserve more than that. Still, it was a bit of a gut punch for Dr Sturgis to cut off Sheldon like that, however much he deserved it.

Other stuff: How does that Trophy Store stay in business? The owner showed no interest when a customer walked into his shop! Even if you couldn't meet her needs (or at least, not before 5 weeks) show some interest in what she wants when she comes in.

Finally - I guess Missy's favourite Toy Story character is Sid!

[voiceover]

Since I never watched BBT before I saw this series, I've been at sea over "adult Sheldon" references.  

But I'll jump in on a teeny point here:

In the first or second ep, George Sr told his youngest son why the family had left Galveston: bc in a highly competitive -- and jealous -- atmosphere like Texas hs football, George saw corruption, reported it, and was promptly blacklisted and booted out of town.  Word spreads, and the possibility of his getting a better coaching job (that wasn't a condition of bringing Sheldon along) vanishes.

I choose to believe Sheldon was deeply impressed by his father's integrity, and probably -- unknowingly -- tried, in his own Sheldon way, to emulate it.

Of course these situations are different.  It just sort of pinged.