# How Old Are The Character on "The Big Bang Theory" Suppose To Be? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 20, 2010, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747 "2010-01-20T21:44:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747/41 "2012-01-26T18:32:59Z")
> [@JoelUpchurch](#): > > At one point Sheldon refers to his job title as “Senior Theoretical Particle Physicist”, which doesn’t sound like a faculty position. Other people have commented that it doesn’t look like Howard should be working at Cal-tech at all. He should be over at JPL. Howard does work at JPL (he mentions it many times). But JPL is administered by Caltech, so it’s not impossible that his office is near the other three. ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747/42 "2012-01-26T18:35:55Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > That doesn’t mean that Sheldon is paying Raj out of his own pocket, though. It most likely means that he has grant funding which can be earmarked for various purposes, including the hiring of personnel. In other words, this doesn’t say anything about Sheldon’s personal income. In the episode where Sheldon lent Penny money, he stated he didn’t spend a lot of his income. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747/43 "2012-01-26T18:41:29Z")
True, but that’s different from the point which I was addressing. I do agree that he has a lot of unspent income. ---
**Author:** ![Sister\_Vigilante](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Sister\_Vigilante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sister_Vigilante)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747/44 "2012-01-26T19:11:08Z")
> [@Barking\_Dog](#): > > Well, the pilot doesn’t mention their jobs or education level, they decide to leave the sperm bank without donating, and Howard and Raj do show up. And there’s no reference to suggest Sheldon has had sex, although there is a moment where he tries to impress Penny, which I interpreted as he was attracted to her. And he drinks a beer. That’s not the original pilot. There is no Penny, Howard, or Raj in the original pilot. There is a slutty chick who needs a place to stay and they let her live in their third bedroom which is off to the left of the set, opposite their bedrooms. She is not played by the actress who plays Penny. Leonard does donate to the sperm bank and the first scene is him waiting for Sheldon to finish (he didn’t like the “motivational materials” I believe, so it took him longer). They are doing it so they can have money for dinner. And there is a nerd girl Sheldon had sex with while cosplaying as Spock undergoing Pon Farr. It never aired but it’s on youtube. Some of the dialogue is word for word but they changed a lot when they redid the pilot. The original is pretty cringe-worthy. ---
**Author:** ![Barking\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Barking\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barking_Dog)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747/45 "2012-01-26T19:36:34Z")
Indeed? I didn’t realize. Well then, to Youtube!!! (cue dramatic music) ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747/46 "2012-01-26T19:40:03Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > Howard does work at JPL (he mentions it many times). But JPL is administered by Caltech, so it’s not impossible that his office is near the other three. JPL is administered by Caltech, but its campus is several miles away. (And considerably larger. Caltech is a tiny university.) I think Sheldon, Leonard and Raj are probably all intended to be postdoctoral fellows (postdocs). Postdocs are actually the people who do most of the work of scientific research these days. They do not have much in the way of teaching duties, and are fairly poorly paid, but although they will be under the supervision of a faculty member (who will control their funding, and be responsible for getting the funding grants), in some cases they may have a fair amount of autonomy over the detailed direction of their research. Howard is probably meant to be a JPL staff engineer. Caltech is a very unusual university in that it has more Ph.D. students and postdocs than it does undergraduates. Research is the focus and undergrad teaching is almost an afterthought. What is unrealistic, however, is that Sheldon, Leonard and Raj do not seem to have to supervise, or even interact with, any Ph.D. students. In real life there would be quite a lot of them around, doing the grunt work of research and outnumbering the postdocs probably even at Caltech. (Somebody like Leonard would also almost certainly have a lab tech or two, and several Ph.D. students and other postdocs working with him, but when we see him in his lab he always seems to be alone. The same goes for Raj except that I do not think I have ever seen him at work, except when he was working with/for Sheldon.) ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747/47 "2012-01-26T19:57:57Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > I think Sheldon, Leonard and Raj are probably all intended to be postdoctoral fellows (postdocs). Postdocs are actually the people who do most of the work of scientific research these days. They do not have much in the way of teaching duties, and are fairly poorly paid, but although they will be under the supervision of a faculty member (who will control their funding, and be responsible for getting the funding grants), in some cases they may have a fair amount of autonomy over the detailed direction of their research. That certainly sounds like the boys, yes. (Except the poorly paid part, for Sheldon - see the earlier reference to his uncashed pay cheques.) To the OP’s original question, despite the actors’ ages, I think Sheldon’s probably the youngest of the guys, probably closer to Penny’s age - he’s an insanely high level child prodigy, who seems to have gotten his PhD in his mid-teens, so about 10 years before the others, relatively speaking, but he doesn’t seem to have been at the school for that much longer than them, so I’d say he’s probably about 5 years younger. (Could go a bit older if his ‘visiting faculty’ travels went a good long while.) ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747/48 "2012-01-26T20:01:28Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > JPL is administered by Caltech, but its campus is several miles away. (And considerably larger. Caltech is a tiny university.) Right. But in the universe of The Big Bang Theory, it isn’t a gigantic stretch to give Howard (a JPL employee) an office in Caltech. > [@](#): > > They do not have much in the way of teaching duties, and are fairly poorly paid, but although they will be under the supervision of a faculty member (who will control their funding, and be responsible for getting the funding grants), in some cases they may have a fair amount of autonomy over the detailed direction of their research. This is a pretty accurate description of their work life on the show, even including their supervisor Dr. Gablehauser. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747/49 "2012-01-26T20:57:08Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Leonad once had a date and told Sheldon to “get scare.” His reply was: > > I’m a 25 year old published theoretical physicist with three Ph.D.'s. How much scarer could I be? > [@mr.jp](#): > > Scarce? Only took two years to catch that one. SCARCE. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747/50 "2012-01-26T21:01:02Z")
the show has a slim thread to reality with which to crack jokes and pick on some stereotypes. so not to take anything too seriously. they’ve spent more time in a cafeteria than i ever did post high school. though it would be interesting to find the real math equations that appear in sequential episodes transcribed somewhere. while they could be postdocs in The Benefactor Factor they are expected to be major actors in fund raising. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747/51 "2012-01-26T21:36:34Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > I actually _was_ once a postdoc at Caltech, and knew… That makes you the leading SDMB candidate to be Weird Al. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747/52 "2012-01-27T04:10:46Z")
> [@](#): > > This is a pretty accurate description of their work life on the show, even including their supervisor Dr. Gablehauser. I think Dr. Gablehauser is the department chair, not a group supervisor. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747/53 "2012-01-27T04:44:20Z")
> [@Barking\_Dog](#): > > Indeed? I didn’t realize. Well then, to Youtube!!! (cue dramatic music) I read the end of that in Ranjit’s (the chauffeur/cabbie on HIMYM) voice. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747/54 "2012-01-27T09:26:58Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > That makes you the leading SDMB candidate to be Weird Al. :eek: 😕 Yankovic? He didn’t go to Caltech, at least not according to [his Wikipedia page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Weird_Al%22_Yankovic). Or is there some other Weird Al I don’t know about. Anyway, I may be weird, but I am not an Al. ---
**Author:** ![Cayuga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Cayuga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cayuga)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747/55 "2012-01-27T14:30:36Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > though it would be interesting to find the real math equations that appear in sequential episodes transcribed somewhere. He’s let it lapse recently, but the guy in charge of keeping the science on the show accurate (including putting all the writing on the whiteboards) used to have a blog here: > **[The Big Blog Theory](https://thebigblogtheory.wordpress.com/)** > > The science behind the science ---
**Author:** ![Cayuga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Cayuga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cayuga)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747/56 "2012-01-27T14:32:22Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > OM f’in G. Penny was born when I was starting my senior year of high school. > > Where is my walker?!? Hell, when Penny was born, I had finished college, had a job, been on unemployment, and gotten another job. And no, you can’t have your walker back. ---
**Author:** ![LH75](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lh75/32/4438_2.png) [@LH75](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LH75)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747/57 "2012-01-27T14:54:12Z")
I am getting ready to trace a circuit with a fluke meter that is older than Penny. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747/58 "2012-01-27T16:45:50Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > though it would be interesting to find the real math equations that appear in sequential episodes transcribed somewhere. > [@Cayuga](#): > > He’s let it lapse recently, but the guy in charge of keeping the science on the show accurate (including putting all the writing on the whiteboards) used to have a blog here: > > [http://thebigblogtheory.wordpress.com/](http://thebigblogtheory.wordpress.com/) i recently went (went back) there. the archives start with s02e23. it is a good site. elsewhere i saw mention of the equation sequence starting in season 1. i don’t find how long the step wise sequencing went or any info on seasons 1 and 2 equations. ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747/59 "2012-01-27T18:15:15Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > There’s also a mention in one episode of a class taught by Sheldon, though it’s considered an ordeal to take it (that’s one way to get back into his good graces, if you somehow offend him). i don’t think this was meant to be a real academic class via the university but rather shelden has so many personal rules to abide by that if you make infractions, he has a home-made class complete with syllabus and lectures to educate you on the do’s and don’ts of shelden cooper. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747/60 "2012-01-27T18:19:11Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > 😕 > Yankovic? He didn’t go to Caltech, at least not according to [his Wikipedia page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Weird_Al%22_Yankovic). Or is there some other Weird Al I don’t know about. > > Anyway, I may be weird, but I am not an Al. Seeing this I recognize a :smack: ( I didn’t recognize the error last nite) I just remembered he went to Poly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-the-character-on-the-big-bang-theory-suppose-to-be/525747.md?page=4)