Why would Sheldon wait until the Chinese study was shown to be a crock before publishing his retraction, or at least correction? Whether or not the element was actually there his article was incorrect. He made a several order of magnitude error.
If a study is published that used a wrong data set, the hypothesis turning out to be correct does not change the fact that the data set was the wrong one.
Didn’t someone, maybe Sheldon, say that this was the first time that he had to retract something?
If so, there’s another continuity snafu. After the North Pole trip, Sheldon had to retract his claims that he had found monopoles.
And I really thought Sheldon was going to give Kripke a well-deserved punch. He’s much taller and could deliver an impressive wallop, even for a physics nerd.
He hadn’t gotten around to publishing his findings yet, though, had he? Leonard stopped him in time after he confessed to Penny.
Um, no. Howard and Raj told Sheldon outright that the results were faked and told him it was Leonard’s idea. Then Sheldon went across to confront Leonard at which time Leonard confessed.
And he’d already sent an email to the entire college telling them of his discovery.