I get that, but when these serial killer actors go on Conan to promote their movie, they’re not still in serial killer mode. Unless Parsons is “always on,” his real personality is extremely close to Sheldon’s. And I’ve met too many geeks and nerds in my life with some (but thankfully not all) of Sheldon’s traits. There’s almost no way that he is the way he is in real life and isn’t at least a little nerdy. The disdain comes across as a front. And a rather jerkish one at that.
No, I mean he was an asshole before the actual party, at work.
He really comes across as just a jobber, of the Olivier school of “Try acting, dear boy”. Definitely not a Method man.
One further thought - I’m of the “Alcohol lowers inhibitions, it doesn’t change personalities” school of thought - if Drunk Raj is an asshole, that means Sober Raj is an asshole who hides it (and not all that well - he has frequent bursts of anger, he’s often bitchy in his interactions with Howard, and his behaviour when he and Sheldon were winning at Ka’a was also assholish)
Galecki’s first role was David, straight man and kicking post to Roseanne’s Darlene. As he did with Charlie Sheen, Chuck Lorre saw the potential of surrounding that character with the right supporting cast, and hit comedy gold.
Leonard brought Howard and Raj into Sheldon’s life, and he is the glue that holds the friendship together. Howard and Raj have a good bromance going, and Leonard is the buffer between them and Sheldon.
That’s really not a fair comparison, since I can’t remember the last realistic portrayal of a psychotic serial killer that I’ve seen. It’s more of a character archetype than based on the real thing.
The way they do act? Angry enough to kill someone and revel in it? Acting crazy in the least accurate ways? Yeah, I’d say they have to have at least experienced that to handle it. Or at least been around people who have experienced it. And if you hang around with geeks intentionally, you pretty much are a geek.
The two are not mutually exclusive. Alcohol has a physiological effect on him, but there is also the placebo effect.
Personally, one of the things I love about the show is the fact that the character who’s most like me isn’t an absurd caricature of nerdiness, and in fact isn’t even the nerdiest of the cast. I basically am a Leonard, minus the relationship with Penny.
I do think they exaggerated the characters a little: It is a TV show, after all, and exaggeration makes for better drama and better humor. But only a little.
nm
Chronos has it right - Raj is an exaggeration of the fellow I dated, but not much. When we first met he was absurdly shy around me and all women - I mean, we dated for 3 years and by the end he was a normal guy, but in other ways he was very much like Raj. Indian, nerdy, oppressive parents who would have had a shit fit if they found out he was dating a white girl, etc.
He even acts like a bit of a dick when he gets drunk. 
I have to say though, that I’m always disappointed when threads like this take this kind of turn - like people are critical that the people on the show aren’t EXACTLY like people IRL. Come on - it’s a 22 minute sitcom - a certain amount of short hand is required to move the story along - if every character was going to have a complete, richly detailed back story, with total internal consistency, each episode would be like Seven Samurai.
I’d like to erdos her bacon!
I know I am reviving a very old thread, but since no one bit on this… who is the world’s first hottest math nerd?
I just did a search on world’s hottest math near and the name that came up most often is Pietro Boselli. The next most common name coming up is Oksana Neveselaya. Assuming these are from people faking things to get clicks, these seem to be the answer.
I just did another search on world’s hottest math nerd. The name that came up most often is Pietro Boselli. The next most common name is Oksana Neveselaya, but she is a fake math nerd. All the mentions of her online are from a website with a picture of someone else. Incidentally, another math nerd who’s known for something else outside mathematics is John Urschel.
Given that one profile of Oksana Neveselaya says she was born in 1999 in Ukraine, and another says it was 1983 in Belarus, I’m a little skeptical.
It’s higher math.
If you want to include women who died within the history of the SDMB, there’s the actress Hedy Lamarr, who invented frequency hopping.
Clickbait to the rescue!
I just searched “list of sexy math nerds” and got a list of seven women and three men. Caution, the list was compiled in 2013, so some of them may have dropped from prime numbers to fractions.
I would say so, and so would Jimmy Carr:
Spoilered because - I did say it was Jimmy Carr, didn/t I?