Sheldon Cooper

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Sheldon Cooper, PhD
Jim Parsons as Dr. Sheldon Cooper
First appearance	"Pilot"
Portrayed by	Jim Parsons
Episode count	45
IQ	187
Information
Nickname(s)	Shelly (by Missy and his mother), Dr. Dumbass, Dumbass (by Leslie), Sheldor The Conqueror (Age of Conan), Moon Pie (by his Grandmother "Memaw"), Dr. Whackadoodle (by Penny)
Gender	Male
Age	25
Specialty	String theory
Occupation	Theoretical physicist
Title	Dr. Sheldon Cooper MSc, PhD
Family	Mary Cooper (mother), Missy Cooper (fraternal twin sister), Grandmother "Memaw", unnamed older brother
Religion	None
Nationality	American

Dr. Sheldon Cooper is a fictional character on the CBS television series The Big Bang Theory, portrayed by actor Jim Parsons. A Caltech theoretical physicist, Sheldon is Leonard Hofstadter's best friend, roommate, and colleague.^[1] He is cynical, believing that Leonard is only setting himself up for disappointment as he continues to have a crush on their neighbor, Penny. Sheldon often represents the voice of reason amongst his friends, as he does not hesitate to point out the facts, although his stubbornness and quirks are usually the source of conflicts during the show. The character is named in honor of actor/producer Sheldon Leonard.

Contents 1 Character 1.1 Background 1.2 Characteristics 1.2.1 Interpretation that Sheldon has Asperger syndrome 1.3 Relationships 2 Reception 3 See also 4 References

[edit] Character

[edit] Background

Sheldon is a published theoretical physicist and possesses a Master's degree and 2 PhDs.^[2] Sheldon also possesses an eidetic memory.^[3] Because of his high IQ (of 187^[4]), he tends to question the theories of his colleagues, especially Leonard. Like Leonard, Sheldon keeps a whiteboard in the living room for scientific theories and equations, most of which feature complex higher mathematics, such as virtual particles in quantum mechanics, or series of Riemann zeta functions.^[5][6] Sheldon conducts string theory research at Caltech. Throughout the course of the show, Sheldon has switched disciplines from bosonic string theory to heterotic string theory and reconciled the black hole information paradox using a string network condensate approach.^[7]

Born in Galveston, Texas,^[8] Sheldon was a child prodigy. As a kid, he built a CAT scanner,^[8] a so-called "Death Ray",^[9] and an armed robot made using his sister's Easy Bake Oven, which he modified.^[10] He learned the entire language of Latin before the fifth grade. Sheldon entered college at the age of eleven,^[5] right after completing the fifth grade. When Sheldon was twelve years old, he wanted a titanium centrifuge to separate radioactive isotopes.^[11] According to his mother, he also built a nuclear reactor at thirteen years old in order to provide free electricity for his town; however this failed after a government agent informed him that it was illegal to store yellowcake uranium in a shed.^[9] At age fourteen, he dabbled in lasers (resulting in his being sent to boarding school after the government took his laser away and hushed the college professor who witnessed the experiment), ^[2] began doctoral work, ^[12] and was the youngest person to receive the Stevenson Award (six months after his fourteenth birthday).^[12] Sheldon worked as a visiting professor at the Heisenberg Institute in Germany at age fifteen,^[4] and received his first PhD at sixteen years old,^[13] working on twistor theory.^[14] He then spent four years on his (second) dissertation, and has held his current job for three-and-a-half years.^[9]

[edit] Characteristics

Sheldon possesses some qualities commonly associated with being a prodigy or one with autism spectrum disorder, such as social ineptitude, a lack of empathy, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, and his purely logical state, which often annoy his friends. As a corollary, it is apparent that he believes everyone else to be intellectually inferior to him, including fellow physicists and even Isaac Newton.^[15] Sheldon has an overly extensive general knowledge, such as shown by his comments regarding the introduction of the fork into Thailand.^[2] Sheldon's eccentricities and snide remarks especially put him at odds with Penny. He not only fails to understand the simplest sarcastic jokes made by Leonard^[2], but also regards Penny's sadness over her breakup with blatant confusion.^[6] However, recently, he has begun to understand the concept of sarcasm, attempting (unsuccessfully) to employ it himself towards Penny in the second season,^[16] and successfully employing it towards his friends in the third season. That is not to say Sheldon does not have a conscience; he is simply more likely to do what is scientifically ethical (not donate to a "high IQ sperm bank" because his sperm will not guarantee high IQ offspring^[6]) rather than morally and socially ethical (break into Penny's home to organize her things^[2]). Sheldon is obsessive compulsive, and as a result, has a schedule he must stick to (such as going to the comic book store on certain days, taking a certain path to work, eating specific food items on specific days, or knocking on the door a certain number of times while repeating the name of the person he is seeking with a particular frequency).^[17] He is a mysophobe who constantly worries about others touching his food and washes his hands "as often as he can" and showers twice a day.^[18] He is also quite the hypochondriac, and his access to Dr. Barnett only exacerbates the situation.^[19] He often rambles on about his imaginative ideas and theories, much to Leonard's annoyance, but does not listen to his friend concerning his (Leonard's) research. Sheldon cannot drive an automobile, and needs his friends to take him places; he feels someone of his intellect does not need to learn how to drive.^[14] He refuses to sit anywhere other than his designated spot on the couch^[6], though has at one point only sat in Leonard's spot near the end of episode "The Bat Jar Conjecture", or seats with sub-optimal conditions, such as suitable cushion densities and light dispersion.^[20] Sheldon regularly reproaches Penny for sitting in his spot. His attention to details concerning the conditions of his environment extend even further: when he was younger, he conducted experiments involving the height of stairs and deduced that if a step on a staircase is as little as 2 millimeters off, most people will trip (this resulted in his father breaking his clavicle).^[6] When Sheldon is complicit in a lie, he exhausts all of his efforts in his always unsuccessful attempt to make it believable.^[21] Similarly, he cannot be entrusted with a secret, as it tears at him to be untrustworthy.^[22] He cannot stand to be interrupted or concede when he doesn't know something, crinkling his lips with insane frustration when this happens (this also tends to happen when he tries to lie).^{[23] [13]} He places "strikes" on someone if that person violates his imposed conditions.^[17] For the reasons aforementioned, his friends categorize him as crazy, even though he repeats his mother had him tested for insanity.^[24][25] However, Sheldon can be a kind person as well. For example, when Penny is low on money, Sheldon lets her borrow some of his and doesn't seem to be irritated by the large amount that she takes. He also doesn't care when he gets the money back, which has been described by Leonard as "one of the few idiosyncrasies that doesn't make you want to, you know, kill him".^[26] Also, when Sheldon accidentally forgets his keys and locks himself out of his apartment while everyone else is in Las Vegas, Penny lets him stay at her place and Sheldon sincerely thanks her for it, although he then tells her to get out of his room,^[27] as Sheldon cannot tolerate people in his bedroom.^[28][29]

Sheldon also has childish qualities. For example, he must get his way (e.g., naming the Caltech Physics Bowl team or choosing the way to go to San Francisco for a conference where he seeks Nobel laureate George Smoot's approval), and he needs his mother (or Penny) to care for him when he is sick, which involves singing "Soft Kitty" and rubbing Vicks on his chest. He is also seen playing Super Mario 64 during free alone time, and Age of Conan and Rock Band often with his friends (the latter he even plays with Leonard's mother when she comes to visit). He enjoys watching Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who,^[18] Stargate,^[25] and Star Trek, and likes playing Halo 3 every Wednesday^[7][18] and paintball on the weekend with his friends.^[7] He is often seen with a red Dell XPS laptop with a large sticker on it.^[10][30] He dislikes banal Internet humor, such as "lolcats" and has a pronounced disdain for engineers, referring to them as both "noble semi-skilled labor" and "the Oompa Loompas of science".^[12] He also considers engineering to be the "slow younger brother of physics".^[31] He often wears vintage t-shirts adorned with superhero logos, specific to the DC universe, among them the Flash, Superman, Aquaman, and the Green Lantern. He usually wears his shirts over some sort of sweater, and as part of his style, commonly wears plaid pants. Sheldon is tall and thin (setting him apart from his shorter colleagues), with Penny saying he "looks like a praying mantis". Raj has also likened C-3PO to "a shiny Sheldon". His favorite characters seem to be Batman ^[7][13][22] and Spock.^{[30][32][8][33]} He also used to idolize Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation, but Wil Wheaton's surprise cancellation of an appearance at a Jackson, Mississippi Trek convention in 1995 caused Sheldon to swear vengeance against Wil in the form of a customizable card game tournament.^[3] Unlike Leonard, Sheldon embraces his genius fully and does not mind sharing details of his life that Leonard finds embarrassing, such as a common activity being Klingon Boggle.^[6][17] As a side note, Sheldon does not seem to be able to tolerate alcohol very well, as shown that after drinking something alcoholic (which Penny described as "some virgin Cuba Libres that were a little slutty".) he began to play the keyboard and sing songs from the musical "The Fiddler on the Roof". The same goes for caffeine; just a little coffee sends him hurtling round the apartment when it was meant to keep him up at night in the episode The Work Song Nanocluster.

[edit] Interpretation that Sheldon has Asperger syndrome

It has been suggested that Sheldon may have Asperger syndrome (AS). The writers have stated that they did not use AS as a basis for the character, but instead thought of his actions as "Sheldony".^[34] In an interview, Parsons noted the writers' response, but added that in his opinion, Sheldon “couldn’t display more traits” of AS.^[35]

[edit] Relationships

Among all of his friends, Sheldon shows the least interest in forming social relationships of any sort, leading to Howard hypothesizing that he reproduces through mitosis, while Leonard postulates he will someday emerge from a cocoon and sprout wings^[7]. Sheldon does inadvertently become involved in one relationship with a grad student named Ramona Nowitzki (played by Riki Lindhome), although it is not a romantic relationship by any one of the two parts.^[7] This abruptly falls apart when Sheldon refuses to share credit for a discovery.

This nonsexual behavior has lead many bloggers and viewers to believe that Sheldon is asexual;^[36] Sheldon would be the first asexual portrayed in an American series. Sheldon has shown that he has at least recognized Penny's attractiveness, stating: "No one can be that attractive and this skilled at a video game (Halo)."

Sheldon can only handle having a limited number of friends in his "landing party" at a time. Sheldon is best friends with Leonard, as they are accustomed to tolerating each other ever since Sheldon put out an ad for a roommate with a list of critera to follow, and despite Sheldon sometimes making remarks to the contray, he appreciates him and assures Leonard that his friend will not die alone. However, they do argue over presenting a paper on supersolids written by both of them at an Institute of Experimental Physics topical conference on Bose-Einstein condensates.^[15] For the reason aforementioned, he once tries to cutoff Raj, after considering what Leonard, Howard, Penny, Barry, and Raj have to offer him.^[23] With Raj's arrogance after recognition in a magazine, Sheldon and the remaining guys ponder what type of friend they need, concluding that he should be Iron Man once Leonard totes up their criteria (access to a great house, high technology and lots of women).^[24] Though, he does lend help to Koothrappali by giving him a job under his supervision, and they seem friendly.^[37] Sheldon covers for Howard's mistakes at work twice^[32][2] and misses his presence when Howard is distracted by a woman.^[18] He considers Penny as a friend and calls upon a covenant of friendship, the favor.^[14] Despite their arguments,^[17][25] Sheldon and Penny have become close friends, due to some time alone with each other, such as when she cares for him during illness^[4] or when Penny takes him in as he is locked out of his apartment while his pals are in Las Vegas.^[27] He is especially grateful to Penny for the signed napkin from Leonard Nimoy she got him, even prompting Sheldon to attempt to hug her, though not entirely successful, as it appears he isn't entirely sure how to hug someone.^[33]

His family appears to be some cause of consternation for Sheldon: he has an extremely attractive fraternal twin sister, Missy^[10] and an unnamed older brother^[38] who commonly beat him up, their mother Mary describing them both to be "dumb as soup".^[9] Sheldon becomes offended when he finds that Missy tells others he is a rocket scientist; he apparently thinks the title is inaccurate and below him, telling her she might as well say he is a toll collector at the Golden Gate Bridge. He does not find his friends suitable to be with his sister. His mother is a devout Christian whose spiritual beliefs are sometimes at odds with Sheldon's beliefs in science, though he loves her, and she is the only one who has ever been able to control Sheldon; in fact, Leonard says she is his kryptonite.^[17] His father died before the start of the series and is often mentioned as being an almost-redneck Texan.^[9] Though it is not mentioned when or how Mr. Cooper's death occurred, it is assumed to be close to the show's start, as Missy visits Sheldon to bring paperwork regarding their father's estate.^[10]. He is very fond of his grandmother "Memaw", who calls him "Moon Pie".^[3]

[edit] Reception

On July 16, 2009, Jim Parsons was nominated for an Emmy Award for Lead Actor in a Comedy for the role of Sheldon. ^[39]

[edit] See also

• The Big Bang Theory
• Leonard Hofstadter
• Howard Wolowitz
• Rajesh Koothrappali
• Penny

[edit] References

v • d • e The Big Bang Theory Main characters Leonard Hofstadter · Sheldon Cooper · Penny · Howard Wolowitz · Rajesh Koothrappali · Leslie Winkle Production Episode list · Characters · Chuck Lorre · Bill Prady Cast Johnny Galecki · Jim Parsons · Kaley Cuoco · Simon Helberg · Kunal Nayyar · Sara Gilbert Seasons Season 1 · Season 2 · Season 3