S12.E09: The Citation Negation

[Bort]

Quote

Sheldon and Amy are devastated after learning from a Russian paper that Super Asymmetry has already been discovered and disproven. Also, ultra-competitive Bernadette asks Stuart’s girlfriend, Denise, to teach her how to beat Howard in a popular videogame.

Airdate: Thursday, November 15, 2018

[PaulaO]

I’ve been a professional librarian for over 30 years.  I find it hard to believe that Cal Texh doesn’t license every database in the world.  No need to manually verify citations—scientific databases go back to the 1900s.  And I hope Amy and Sheldon have actually read the papers they are citing....

[Browncoat]

Yeah, generally you look up references/citations as you write.

Also, wasn't Penny big into gaming early on?  Was that before Bernadette joined the cast?

[mxc90]

Bernadette: you got eyes. What do you think? WTF!

After all these years, I still can't "see" why she chose Howard.

[shapeshifter]

39 minutes ago, PaulaO said:

I’ve been a professional librarian for over 30 years.  I find it hard to believe that Cal Texh doesn’t license every database in the world.  No need to manually verify citations—scientific databases go back to the 1900s.  And I hope Amy and Sheldon have actually read the papers they are citing....

Heh. I've worked in academic libraries since the early 1990s and earned my MLS IN 2000 (second career). Even if we fanwanked that they were checking the few that were not online: Why were the stacks so dark? And no way would they have left the library with the journal volume; they would have scanned the article and emailed and printed it—or maybe just taken pictures of the pages with a cellphone.

 I really liked Penny's topknot hairdo with her simple black outfit in the hallway when Leonard was about to knock on Sheldon and Amy's door.

There was one line that made me chuckle, but I can't recall it. Maybe someone else here will. 

This episode seemed longer. Maybe because there weren't too many plots? 

I liked that we got a believeable and amusing reason for comic-book-store-girl's attraction to Stewart.

[Chit Chat]

I was hoping that Howard misinterpreted the information.  I guess that would be a stretch to get that much of it wrong though.  Still, I would've have tried to find another professor in their college that might be fluent in Russian (or know of someone who is) to look it over.   

7 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

I liked that we got a believeable and amusing reason for comic-book-store-girl's attraction to Stewart.

She was pretty funny, especially when helping Bernadette with the video game. 

[ams1001]

1 hour ago, Browncoat said:

Also, wasn't Penny big into gaming early on?  Was that before Bernadette joined the cast?

She played Halo one night with the guys when her "friend" from Nebraska was visiting and hooked up with Howard in Penny's apartment, and discovered she was pretty good at it (and kept blowing up Sheldon). Later she got sucked into Age of Conan for an episode. She seems to be naturally good at them, if only occasionally interested in playing. (Those were in seasons 1 and 2, respectively; Bernadette first appeared in season 3.)

Oh, and I loved Penny's dark gray dress.

Edited November 16, 2018 by ams1001

[CleoCaesar]

Has Howard's knowledge of Russian ever been brought up before? I assume he knows basic phrases from his time aboard the ISS, but enough to translate (even cursorily) a scholarly article?

I too was surprised that the writers went there with the Super Asymmetry theory. I thought it would be the thing that makes Sheldon and Amy hugely successful in the scientific community. The fact that it was disproven in the 1970s certainly casts a pall over their wedding-day excitement at their new discovery.

[Spartan Girl]

Poor Sheldon and Amy. It sucks enough when your idea turns out to be already taken, but to find out it's been debunked on top of that? Sucks.

Loved competitive Bernadette being trained by Stuart's girlfriend.

[ams1001]

7 minutes ago, CleoCaesar said:

Has Howard's knowledge of Russian ever been brought up before? I assume he knows basic phrases from his time aboard the ISS, but enough to translate (even cursorily) a scholarly article?

According to the character bio on Wikipedia: "Besides English, Howard can speak seven languages including French, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic, Persian, Japanese, American sign language and the constructed language Klingon from the Star Trek franchise. He also knows some words in Sindarin, one of the elvish dialects invented by J.R.R. Tolkien for The Lord of the Rings. Although in the show, Howard has been mentioned as speaking these languages, the writers have not explored his proficiency much."

[Zoe]

Loved Penny's outfits in this one.

I kept thinking that the Russian paper might be wrong.

[Frost]

28 minutes ago, ChitChat said:

I was hoping that Howard misinterpreted the information.  I guess that would be a stretch to get that much of it wrong though.  Still, I would've have tried to find another professor in their college that might be fluent in Russian (or know of someone who is) to look it over.   

Exactly!  Howard said his Russian was rusty when he started to look at the paper.  Why on earth would Sheldon and Amy just take his translation at face value?  I hope they end up digging deeper.  Maybe the writer of the Russian paper was wrong?

[Nordly Beaumont]

I figured that using info from the Russian paper, they were able to look at their paper from a different angle and realized they missed something. But I was really hoping the Russian paper was the one that was wrong.

[jewel21]

The scene of Bernadette learning how to play a videogame with Stewart's girlfriend cracked me up. I, too, suck at videogames and sit there wondering where the X button is while being killed, heh. I don't even bother anymore. 

[ProfCrash]

2 hours ago, PaulaO said:

I’ve been a professional librarian for over 30 years.  I find it hard to believe that Cal Texh doesn’t license every database in the world.  No need to manually verify citations—scientific databases go back to the 1900s.  And I hope Amy and Sheldon have actually read the papers they are citing....

My degree is in Political Science but I know we were trained to footnote/endnote/cite as we wrote. It was not that hard to do. It was not fun but it was necessary. Hell, there are programs that can handle citations for you these days. Not to mention all the info would be available online.

56 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

Poor Sheldon and Amy. It sucks enough when your idea turns out to be already taken, but to find out it's been debunked on top of that? Sucks.

Loved competitive Bernadette being trained by Stuart's girlfriend.

See, I seriously doubt that a paper from the 1970’s would match Amy and Sheldon’s paper in any way and would be able to debunk what they had developed. 

OK, I also doubt that they could develop a theory that sounds as complicated as the one they did in a matter of months. Again, my degree is not in a hard science but I have difficlty believing that the hard sciences are able to develop massive theories in a matter of months. 

Look, I get that people are mystified by academia. People give Academics far too much credit and have little understanding of how Academia actualy works but this episode is simply ludicrous. It makes me wonder if any of the authors attended college nevermind know anyone who worked on a Masters degree.

Unbelievable, ridiculous, insulting plot lines. Just ugggghhhh 

[Snow Apple]

I kept waiting for Amy to bring up the fact that she lost her research job and now she lost this too. So she lost her original job for nothing. Very upsetting.

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, ProfCrash said:

My degree is in Political Science but I know we were trained to footnote/endnote/cite as we wrote.

Physics citations are very spare--not even an article title and the journal titles are very abbreviated. It can be difficult to identify and find them, especially if they don't have DOIs. So I though maybe they were checking that information cited in one article from another ("indirect" or "secondary" citations) were accurate, and, when possible, locating the original articles. But if it was 100s of citations to be checked . . . . IDK.
So, yeah:

1 hour ago, ProfCrash said:

It makes me wonder if any of the authors attended college

and/or did any of the writers ever write a research paper?

 

 

I thought Howard would've learned Russian from his grandparents--not that I learned it from mine, but that's a whole other story.

 

1 hour ago, Snow Apple said:

I kept waiting for Amy to bring up the fact that she lost her research job and now she lost this too. So she lost her original job for nothing. Very upsetting.

I assumed she got her research job back after TPTB (including Sheldon) realized they overstepped, and that she was still working on the asymmetry project on the side.

Edited November 16, 2018 by shapeshifter

[chocolatine]

This is ridiculous. Who cites papers they didn't read in a work that's supposed to be their crack at a Nobel Prize?

10 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

I thought Howard would've learned Russian from his grandparents--not that I learned it from mine, but that's a whole other story.

 

It's highly unlikely he would have learned Russian to the level of proficiency needed to understand and translate a scientific paper. I'm a native Russian speaker though I left the former Soviet Union when I was 11 and my education from then on was in German and English. I'm not sure I would have been able to translate that paper.

Edited November 16, 2018 by chocolatine

[Twilight Man]

2 hours ago, ChitChat said:

I was hoping that Howard misinterpreted the information. ............. Still, I would've have tried to find another professor in their college that might be fluent in Russian (or know of someone who is) to look it over.    

They, of course, get the Russian janitor.   "Here, I am janitor.  Back home, in Russia, I am scientist."

and, for the last time, Raj, we are not getting Mayim Bialik to be on our te-, oh, ............. never mind.

2 hours ago, Zoe said:

I kept thinking that the Russian paper might be wrong.

 

2 hours ago, Nordly Beaumont said:

I was really hoping the Russian paper was the one that was wrong.

I remember back when Sheldon thought he had discovered "something", only to have Leonard disprove it a few episodes later.

As I recall, shortly after Sheldon discovered it, they asked the Russians (or was it the Chinese??) to colloborate the data, which they did

(which they never pointed out when Leonard later debunked it).  I seriously was wondering that as well when this new piece of data came up.

(Does anyone remember that movie where Walter Mattheu is portraying Albert Einstein (NOT KIDDING!!!) and he tricks the Russians somehow.)

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Twilight Man said:

 

I remember back when Sheldon thought he had discovered "something", only to have Leonard disprove it a few episodes later.

As I recall, shortly after Sheldon discovered it, they asked the Russians (or was it the Chinese??) to colloborate the data, which they did

(which they never pointed out when Leonard later debunked it).  I seriously was wondering that as well when this new piece of data came up.

It was the Chinese. They said it was the greatest thing since the communist party. There was a mention that the scientists faked the data after Leonard disproved the discovery. 

I hope there is a twist coming up. This would be really sour note for the show to go out on in regards to Sheldons career. 

[tkc]

Not part of the storyline, but I appreciated this episode's vanity card.

From Chuck Lorre's web site, with the caption "Excelsior Forever!":

RIP, Stan Lee, 1922-2018.

Edited November 16, 2018 by tkc

[Edmond83]

Disappointed that it looks like the Shamy project is dead especially as it played such a major role at their wedding. Not all that surprised though, their other project before this one went seemingly nowhere as well.

This season really is becoming a damp squib.

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, Edmond83 said:

Disappointed that it looks like the Shamy project is dead especially as it played such a major role at their wedding

IRL science, disproving a theory is often just a step towards a new theory. Maybe Shamy will discover a new kernel of truth in the flotsam of the wreckage of their Asymmetry project.

[Eataton]

7 hours ago, mxc90 said:

Bernadette: you got eyes. What do you think?

I still don't get her comment. Is she saying he's a hottie? She's not that hot?  ???. Can someone explain?

[Rebky]

My take was that Bernadette was saying sure, Howard had a face that only a mother could love, but he really rocked in the sack or was packing or both (ewwww). 

[jmonique]

1 hour ago, Eataton said:

I still don't get her comment. Is she saying he's a hottie? She's not that hot?  ???. Can someone explain?

I took the line as Bernadette looks at Howard with Wife Goggles. She’s often referenced how hot she thinks he is.

[rmontro]

1 hour ago, Eataton said:

I still don't get her comment. Is she saying he's a hottie? She's not that hot?  ???. Can someone explain?

Bernie definitely meant that Howard was a hottie, or at least a cutie.  She has talked before (early on) about how tempting Howard was in his "hoochee pants".

It seems crazy on the surface.  But I actually think it's one of Bernadette's sweeter traits that she loves her husband in that way.

[Snow Apple]

6 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

 

I thought Howard would've learned Russian from his grandparents--not that I learned it from mine, but that's a whole other story.

 

I assumed she got her research job back after TPTB (including Sheldon) realized they overstepped, and that she was still working on the asymmetry project on the side.

That's good if she got her job back. I must have missed the clues that it happened.

Howard speaking multiple languages was a big deal in the first season and he used it a few times to try to pick up girls. They've since dropped it and I've actually forgotten about it until this current episode.

[Quark]

Bernadette was hilarious this episode. Denise was great too.

I did laugh a lot too when Sheldon screamed and the look on his face when Leonard corrected him about the Russian.

[sigmaforce86]

10 hours ago, ProfCrash said:

See, I seriously doubt that a paper from the 1970’s would match Amy and Sheldon’s paper in any way and would be able to debunk what they had developed. 

 

I came here to ask about what you touched on hoping someone on the boards was in or near the field.  As a person who isn't involved in academia or science what I didn't get about the plot was why does that one paper mean their theory is dead.  Especially since it's a 40 year old document.  I mean if they found a 100 year old document saying atoms or germs or similar don't exist and can't be proven to exist they'd laugh at it today.   It seems like they were on track and proving what they theorized so why wouldn't they keep going then add the citation or add a paragraph to their paper like:  "In 1978 Dr so&so from Russia stated XYZ about assymetria however new research has shown this to be incorrect because of our findings of ABC"

Maybe a future plot will have one or both of them having that brainstorm and realizing the Russian was wrong or they can disprove his previous findings.

Bernadette did play video games with the guys once but they never said she was great at it, she spent most of the time making sure Howard's character got med packs and that they had matching outfits.  In fact there's a great blooper real from that where Melissa tries to say "purple" and just fails over and over (and over).

[ElTVaddict]

12 hours ago, mxc90 said:

Bernadette: you got eyes. What do you think? WTF!

After all these years, I still can't "see" why she chose Howard.

I know, especially after we were introduced to her ex Glenn in Love Car Displacement. In another episode after their break up she tells him why she chose him, paraphrasing  ." look at you, you a flashy dresser."

[ProfCrash]

1 hour ago, sigmaforce86 said:

Maybe a future plot will have one or both of them having that brainstorm and realizing the Russian was wrong or they can disprove his previous findings.

This is where I would have thought they would go. Amy and Sheldon would need to get a good translation of the article, compare the results of that study to their own, and move on from there. The original study could not have been that great if it was only available in Russian and was totally unknown to, well, everyone.

That said, I have long argued that Political Science needs a journal dedicated to theories that turn out to be wrong because I suspect that there are a good number of folks who end up repeating the same research only to find that it doesn't pan out. I long joked that if you come up with an original idea it really means that 100 other people had the same idea and already figured out the problems with it. Research is far harder then people think,

[Gummo]

Has it reached the point where the writers just hate these characters and want to make them suffer? Sure seems like it --

First we had the guys working for months on a guidance system they hoped would net them a lot of money and fame in their fields, only to be told the university would take 75% of whatever they earned, and then the military took it away completely under a lid of secrecy -- so no money, no fame, nuthin'.

Now we have Sheldon & Amy working for months on a project, only to discover at the very end that their hypothesis was (supposedly) disproved 40 years earlier (and how did an initial review not turn that up??).

Why is any of this nastiness necessary? To keep these 40-something men and women in the same exact place, socioeconomically and professionally, that they were in when the series started? My god, that was 12 years ago, do they really think the viewers, who accepted them getting married, having kids, growing up, won't accept them having some success? Or is it, as I postulated above, that the creative team is just so tired of it all that they've come to hate the characters and have no reason to hide it anymore?

In any case, this episode left a really bad taste in my mouth. The final scene was depressing, not amusing.

Edited November 16, 2018 by Gummo
I should use the right codes, dammit

[UncleChuck]

Quote

There was one line that made me chuckle, but I can't recall it. Maybe someone else here will. 

Oh, yeah, I do remember that line.  It was pretty funny...

[NutmegsDad]

13 hours ago, ChitChat said:

I was hoping that Howard misinterpreted the information.  I guess that would be a stretch to get that much of it wrong though.  Still, I would've have tried to find another professor in their college that might be fluent in Russian (or know of someone who is) to look it over.   

NutmegsMom pointed out the benefit of having a second opinion for translating, especially since Howard's skill was spotty.

So, Amy can at least go back to her research---- oh wait, the University Sheldon took it away from her, so now she's stuck. Bazinga and womp womp, I guess.

I like the way Stuart's relationship is developing offscreen, and with no big issues or pitfalls coming out. Sometimes, people click, and there's no explanation.

34 minutes ago, UncleChuck said:

Quote

There was one line that made me chuckle, but I can't recall it. Maybe someone else here will. 

Oh, yeah, I do remember that line.  It was pretty funny...

We had to pause and rewind the DVR, we were laughing so hard.

[AnnaRose]

2 hours ago, sigmaforce86 said:

I came here to ask about what you touched on hoping someone on the boards was in or near the field.  As a person who isn't involved in academia or science what I didn't get about the plot was why does that one paper mean their theory is dead.  Especially since it's a 40 year old document.  I mean if they found a 100 year old document saying atoms or germs or similar don't exist and can't be proven to exist they'd laugh at it today.   It seems like they were on track and proving what they theorized so why wouldn't they keep going then add the citation or add a paragraph to their paper like:  "In 1978 Dr so&so from Russia stated XYZ about assymetria however new research has shown this to be incorrect because of our findings of ABC"

Maybe a future plot will have one or both of them having that brainstorm and realizing the Russian was wrong or they can disprove his previous findings.

Thank you for your post, I didn't understand it either.

[NutmegsDad]

54 minutes ago, Gummo said:

Has it reached the point where the writers just hate these characters and want to make them suffer? Sure seems like it --

Howard went into freaking SPACE. He's a fucking ISS Astronaut, and the writers use it as a punchline.

11 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

I thought Howard would've learned Russian from his grandparents--not that I learned it from mine, but that's a whole other story.

When he trained with the Russians for the ISS, he may have picked it up from that.

Edited November 16, 2018 by NutmegsDad
The messages combined, so redunant info consolidated.

[meep.meep]

4 hours ago, sigmaforce86 said:

I came here to ask about what you touched on hoping someone on the boards was in or near the field.  As a person who isn't involved in academia or science what I didn't get about the plot was why does that one paper mean their theory is dead.  Especially since it's a 40 year old document.  I mean if they found a 100 year old document saying atoms or germs or similar don't exist and can't be proven to exist they'd laugh at it today.   It seems like they were on track and proving what they theorized so why wouldn't they keep going then add the citation or add a paragraph to their paper like:  "In 1978 Dr so&so from Russia stated XYZ about assymetria however new research has shown this to be incorrect because of our findings of ABC"

 

For a non-scientist you are right on track.

1) You wouldn't use a reference that you hadn't read.

2) You'd get a decent translation of it.

3) You'd see if the work was solid - are the assumptions still generally accepted, were the calculations done correctly, are the conclusions accurate?

4) Depending on the answer to 3 - you come up with ways to show that the Russian paper shouldn't be accepted, or you work on revising your own work to fit the Russian paper's logic.

You don't just flop over and play dead.  Science is hard.  You have to revise and revise and revise, and that's before it goes out for peer review where total strangers will rip everything you've written to shreds.  And then you revise and revise based on their comments.  Nobody gets a Nobel based on one paper either.  

You would have used your grad students to get you every reference in the scientific literature on your subject BEFORE you started also.

[proserpina65]

16 hours ago, Browncoat said:

Yeah, generally you look up references/citations as you write.

Also, wasn't Penny big into gaming early on?  Was that before Bernadette joined the cast?

There was one episode (The Barbarian Sublimation) in which she got hooked on Age of Conan.  That's probably my favorite episode of the show.  Other than that, we've seen her play video games with the guys once or twice, but I wouldn't have described her as ever having been big into gaming.

16 hours ago, mxc90 said:

Bernadette: you got eyes. What do you think? WTF!

After all these years, I still can't "see" why she chose Howard.

I don't see it either, but it was established early on in their relationship that she thought he was hot stuff.  I remember a reference to tight hootchie pants and snappy patter.

15 hours ago, CleoCaesar said:

Has Howard's knowledge of Russian ever been brought up before?

Yep, early on he said something to Penny to the effect of "has anyone ever told you how hot you are in flawless Russian?".

[proserpina65]

15 hours ago, Nordly Beaumont said:

I figured that using info from the Russian paper, they were able to look at their paper from a different angle and realized they missed something. But I was really hoping the Russian paper was the one that was wrong.

Maybe they will in future episodes?

[proserpina65]

2 hours ago, NutmegsDad said:

When he trained with the Russians for the ISS, he may have picked it up from that.

It was established in Season 1 that Howard spoke Russian fluently (according to him) among several other languages.

2 hours ago, UncleChuck said:

Oh, yeah, I do remember that line.  It was pretty funny...

I rolled off the couch laughing.

[Sarah 103]

I'm not a scientist but I would have thought with all the discoveries made since the 1970s Amy and Sheldon would have realized that the Russian paper was based on old/outdated information and that thier theory was still viable. 

3 hours ago, ProfCrash said:

 if you come up with an original idea it really means that 100 other people had the same idea and already figured out the problems with it. Research is far harder then people think,

I know what you mean. When I wanted to try what I thought was a new approach for a major academic paper, I thought there were two possibilities: The first was that other people had tried the approach and it didn't work which is why I wasn't seeing many examples of it. The second was that I have hit on something new and different than can work. Luckily for me, it was the second. 

[Browncoat]

It would be awesome if people could publish "negative" results (sometimes the answer to your hypothesis is no).  It would be enormously helpful to other scientists, but journals tend not to like those kinds of things. 

Agreed, too, that one paper, published in 1970, is no reason to completely give up.  People work on different aspects of already-published data all the time -- sometimes to revise and refine it, sometimes in an effort to disprove it, and sometimes just with a slightly different take on the original idea.  Being scooped can be heartbreaking, but it isn't the end of research as Sheldon and Amy know it. 

[NutmegsDad]

The Missus had another theory about Howard translating the Russian paper.

He purposely mistranslated it to torpedo Sheldon's theory.

Unfortunately, it's also Amy's theory, and the writers wouldn't be cruel enough to suggest Howard would go that low.....

 

.....would they?

[Dollardraw]

I hope the Russian janitor/physicist is the author of that old paper. It would be funny for Sheldon to have to ask him for help since he refused the Russian’s (right) answer to the final physics bowl question and lost the game.

[Snow Apple]

I also found it strange the whole thing collapsed by one line from the 70's. They need to translate the entire thing to see if there's anything missing or updated. 

It's so unlike Sheldon to just accept something without trying to prove you wrong and that he's smarter than you. 

I think Howard saying his Russian is rusty will come back in the future. Otherwise he would have just did the translation as a straight scene.

[shura]

Nobody would give up just because someone called their theory wrong.  I took it that the paper had all the math to show that the asymmetry theory is incorrect, and Sheldon saw the math and agreed.  Math is universal, you can often follow the math in a foreign language paper even if you don't understand the text.  Maybe Sheldon saw a formula or a calculation there that he knew proved him and Amy wrong.

[Chit Chat]

46 minutes ago, NutmegsDad said:

He purposely mistranslated it to torpedo Sheldon's theory.

I thought about that too, but I think that after the guys lied to Sheldon on the expedition they all took (many seasons ago,) I would hope that Howard would not be that cruel again.  That was the episode where Sheldon went back to stay with his Mom after the guys embarrassed him in front of all of his academic peers by lying about their research on that trip. 

[HazelEyes4325]

While I enjoyed this episode, I was distracted by something not being quite right with Leonard's hair.

I was also reminded that I do not like Bernadette and her hyper-competitive ways and I wish we could swap out Denise for Bernadette.  Of course, the flip side of this is that I have come to adore Howard (of all the actors, Helberg is the one I'm most interested to see post-TBBT) and Stuart irritates me.

[joanne3482]

I'm choosing to believe that they are momentarily in a funk and will snap out of it and go back to their work once they're over their initial shock.