The show gets some interesting aspects of physics culture right. For example, there's the chauvinism of theorists over experimentalists. I was a bit surprised

The show gets some interesting aspects of physics culture right. For example, there's the chauvinism of theorists over experimentalists. I was a bit surprised by this when I first encountered it, but I soon came to realize it's probably motivated by jealously and rejection. Experimentalists operate under the constraint of having to realize a test of one theory and stick with that same theory for months or years at a time, but they get all the cool toys plus the potential for real "Eureaka!" moments (even if those are exceedingly rare). Most theorists would never admit to being jealous of this but, at the same time, they cannot deny being jealous when their colleagues get to work with experimentalists. There are a lot more theorists out there creating material to test than there are labs able to test material! Theorists need to develop tough skin to handle all the times their theories are dismissed as "uninteresting" by experimentalists who define "interesting" as "something we can test". To make matters worse, many experimentalists are also damned good theorists. They're the physics-world equivalent of geniuses who are also first-class jocks! It makes sense for Sheldon to be the ultimate theorist chauvinist since he works with string theory, which is, so far, not of much interest to experimentalists because its so impractical to test! Salzburg is definitely a theorist, and it shows. The whiteboards may be correct most of the time, but the lab scenes are just painfully bad! All they really amount to is, "Hey look! Lasers!". Having a consultant around to check your white-boards is fine, but they should send the writers to intern in an experimental lab for a bit if they ever want to move past seeing the world through Sheldon's eyes. P.S. I specifically watched this show because, when you tell people you work in physics, BBT is the first thing they think of. If there's a TV show specifically about your profession it's surprisingly awkward to be completely ignorant of it!