Not science fiction, but fictional science
Keith S. Taber
we are made of particles that have existed since the moment the universe began…those atoms travelled 14 billion years through time and space
The Big Bang Theory (but not quite the big bang theory).
What is the Big Bang Theory?
The big bang theory is a theory about the origin and evolution of the universe. Being a theory, it is conjectural, but it is the theory that is largely taken by scientists as our current best available account.
According to big bang theory, the entire universe started in a singularity, a state of infinite density and temperature, in which time space were created as well as matter. As the universe expanded it cooled to its present state – some, about, 13.8 billion years later.
(Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay)
The term 'big bang' was originally intended as a kind of mockery – a sarcastic description of the notion – but the term was adopted by scientists, and has indeed become widely used in general culture.
Which brings me to 'The Big Bang Theory', which is said to have been the longest ever running sitcom ('situation comedy') – having been in production for longer than even 'Friends'.
A situation comedy is set around a situation. The situation was that two Cal Tech physicists are sharing an apartment. Leonard (basically a nice guy, but not very successful with women) is flatmate to Sheldon, a synaesthete, and kind of savant (a device on which to lever much of the humour) – a genius with an encyclopaedic knowledge of most areas of science but a deficient 'theory of mind' such that he lacks
- insight into others, and so also
- empathy, and
- the ability to tell when people are using humour or being sarcastic to him.
If most physicists were like Sheldon we could understand why the big bang theory is still called the big bang theory even though the term was intended to be facetious. The show writers claim that Sheldon was not deliberately written to be on the autistic spectrum, but he tends to take statements literally: when it is suggested that he is crazy, he responds that he knows he is not as his mother had him tested as a child.
These guys hang out with Raj (Rajesh), an astrophysicist and Cambridge graduate so shy he is unable to speak to women, or indeed in their presence (presumably not a problem inherited from his father who is is a successful gynaecologist in India), and an engineer, Howard, who to my viewing is just an obnoxious creep with no obvious redeeming qualities. (But then I've not seen the full run.) When Howard becomes a NASA astronaut, he is bullied by the other astronauts, and whilst bullying is never acceptable, it is difficult to be too judgemental in his case.
This group are scientists, and they are 'nerds'. They watch science fiction and superhero movies, buy comic books and action figures, play competitive board games and acquire all the latests technical gadgets. And, apart from Sheldon (who has a strong belief in following a principled rigorous regime of personal hygiene that makes close contact with other humans seem repulsive) they try, and largely fail, to attract women.
In case this does not seem sufficiently stereotypical, the situation is complete when a young woman moves into in the flat opposite Leonard and Sheldon: Penny is the 'hot' new neighbour, who comes across as a 'dumb blonde' (she wants to be an actress – she is actually a waitress whilst she works at that), something of a hedonist, and not having the slightest knowledge of, or interest in, science. Penny's plan in life is to become a movie star, and her back-up plan is to become a television star.
If Sheldon and his friends tend to rather fetishise science and see it as inherently superior to other ways of engaging in the world, then Penny seems to reflect the other side of 'the two cultures' of C. P. Snow's famous lecture/essay that described an arts-science divide in mid-twentieth century British public life. That is, not only an acknowledged ignorance of scientific matters, but an ignorance that is almost worn as a badge of honour. Penny, of course, actually has a good deal of knowledge about many areas of culture that our 'heroes' are ignorant of.
Initially, Penny is the only lead female character in the show. This creates considerable ambiguity in how we are expected to see the show's representations of scientists during the early series. Is the viewer meant to be sharing their world where women are objects of recreation and sport and a distraction from the important business of the scientific quest? Or, is the audience being asked to laugh at these supposedly highly intelligent men who actually have such limited horizons?
Sheldon: I am a physicist. I have a working knowledge of the entire universe and everything it contains.
Penny. Who's Radiohead?
[pause]
Sheldon: I have a working knowledge of important things in the universe.
So, the premise is: can the nerdy, asthmatic, short-sighted, physicist win over the pretty, fun-loving, girl-next-door who is clearly seen to be 'out of his league'.
Spoiler alert
Do not read on if you wish to watch the show and find out for yourself. 😉
A marriage made in the heavens?
I recently saw an episode in series n (where n is a large positive integer) where Leonard and Penny decided to go to Las Vagas and get married. Leonard said he had written his own marriage vows – and it was these that struck me as problematic. My complaint was nothing to do with love and commitment, but just about physics.
A non-physical love?
I made a note of Leonard's line:
"Penny, we are made of particles that have existed since the moment the universe began. I like to think those atoms travelled 14 billion years through time and space to create us so that we could be together and make each other whole."
Leonard declares his love
Sweet. But wrong.
Perhaps Leonard had been confused by the series theme music, the 'History of Everything', by the band Barenaked Ladies. The song begins well enough:
"Our whole universe was in a hot dense state
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago, expansion started…"
Lyrics to History of Everything (The Big Bang Theory Theme)
but in the second verse we are told
"As every galaxy was formed in less time than it takes to sing this song.
A fraction of a second and the elements were made."
Lyrics to History of Everything (The Big Bang Theory Theme)
which seems to reflect a couple of serious alternative conceptions.
So, the theme song seems to suggest that once the big bang had occurred, "nearly fourteen billion years ago", the elements were formed in a matter of seconds, and the galaxies in a matter of minutes. Leonard goes further, and suggests the atoms that he and Penny are comprised of have existed since "the moment the universe began". This is all contrary to the best understanding of physicists.
Surely Leonard, who defended his PhD thesis on particle physics, would know more about the canonical theories about the formation of those particles? (If not, he could ask Raj who once applied for a position in stellar evolution.)
The "hot dense state" was so hot that no particles could have condensed out. Certainly, some particles began to appear very soon after the big bang, but for much of the early 'history of everything' the only atoms that could exist were of the elements hydrogen, helium and lithium – as only the nuclei of these atoms were formed in the early universe.
The formation of heavier elements – carbon, oxygen, silicon and all the rest – occurred in stars – stars that did not exist until considerable cooling from the hot dense state had occurred. (See for example, 'A hundred percent conclusive science. Estimation and certainty in Maisie's galaxy'.) Most of the matter comprising Leonard, Penny, and the rest of us, does not reflect the few elements formed in the immediate aftermath of the big bang, but heavier elements that were formed billions of years later in stars that went supernovae and ejected material into space. 1 As has often been noted, we are formed from stardust.
"…So don't forget the human trial,
The cry of love, the spark of life, dance thru the fireStardust we are
From the lyrics to 'Stardust we are' (The Flower Kings – written by Roine Stolt and Tomas Bodin)
Close to divine
Stardust we are
See how we shine"
Does it matter – it is only pretend
Of course The Big Bang Theory (unlike the big bang theory) is not conjecture, but fiction. So, does it matter if it gets the science wrong? The Big Bang Theory is not meant to be science fiction, but a fiction that uses science to anchor it into a situation that will allow viewers to suspend disbelief.
Leonard is a believable character, but Sheldon is an extreme outlier. Howard and Raj are caricatures, exaggerations, as indeed are Amy (neurobiologist) and Bernadette (microbiologist) the other core characters introduced later.
But the series creators and writers seem to have made a real effort at most points in the show to make the science background authentic. Dialogue, whiteboard contents, projects, laboratory settings and the like seem to have been constructed with great care so that the scientifically literate viewer is comfortable with the context of the show. This authentic professional context offers the credible framework within which the sometimes incredible events of the characters' lives and relationships do not seem immediately ridiculous.
In that context, Leonard getting something so wrong seems incongruent.
Then again, he is in love, so perhaps his vows are meant to tell the scientifically literate viewer that there is a greater truth than even science – that in matters of the heart, poetic truth trumps even physics?
A Marillion song tells us:
A wise man once wrote
Lyrics from 'This is the 21st Century' (Hogarth)
That love is only
An ancient instinct
For reproduction
Natural selection
A wise man once said
That everything could be explained
And it's all in the brain
But as the same song asks: "where is the wisdom in that?"
Source cited:
- Snow, C. P. (1959/1998). The Rede Lecture, 1959: The two cultures. In The Two Cultures (pp. 1-51). Cambridge University Press.
Note:
1 I was tempted to write 'most of the atoms'. Certainly most of the mass of a person is made up of atoms 2 that were formed a long time after the big bang. However, in terms of numbers of atoms, there are more of the (lightest) hydrogen atoms than of any other element: we are about 70% water, and water comprises molecules of H2O. So, that is getting close to half the atoms in us before we consider all the hydrogen in the fats and proteins and so forth.
2 That, of course, assumes the particles we are made of are atoms. Actually, we are comprised chemically of molecules and ions and relatively very, very few free atoms (those that are there are accidentally there in the sense they are not functional). No discrete atoms exist within molecules. So, to talk of the hydrogen atoms in us is to abstract the atoms from molecules and ions.
Leonard confuses matters (and matter) by referring initially to particles (which could be nucleons, quarks?) but then equating these to atoms – even though atoms are unlikely to float around for nearly 14 billion years without interacting with radiation and other matter to get ionised, form molecules, that may then dissociate, etc.
For many people reading this, I am making a pedantic point. When we talk of the atoms in a person's body, we do not actually mean atoms per se, but component parts of molecules of compounds of the element indicated by the atom referred to*. A water molecule does not contain two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom, but it does contain two hydrogen atomic nuclei, and the core of an oxygen atom (its nucleus, and inner electron 'shell') within an 'envelope' of electrons.
* So, it is easier to use the shorthand: 'two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen'.
The reason it is sometimes important to be pedantic is that learners often think of a molecule as just a number of atoms stuck together and not as a new unitary entity composed of the same set of collective components but in a new configuration that gives it different properties. (For example, learners sometimes think the electrons in a covalent bond are still 'owned' by different atoms.) There is an associated common alternative conception here: the assumption of initial atomicity, where students tend to think of chemical processes as being interactions between atoms, even though reacting substances are very, very rarely atomic in nature.
Read about the assumption of initial atomicity
