On tonight’s new episode of the hit sitcom The Big Bang Theory, a mock copy of Scientific American magazine becomes a big plot point. Which makes today a good time to hear from U.C.L.A. physicist David Saltzberg. He’s the show’s science advisor. I recorded a talk he gave at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center all the way back in 2010. Here’s a clip.
“We have about 15 million viewers each episode. And it’s not the same 15 million viewers each episode. So, I could go out and give public lectures on science with 100 people in them every week for 100,000 weeks to get to 10 million people. So this is brief, but it’s a huge audience. And people do watch television with their laptops around. And hopefully they will Google something, and that may be a chance to get the idea that there’s dark matter out there. Especially if they [the characters] are working on it week after week, and people do care about the characters—there’s a pretty good chance people are Googling what’s going on.”
For more from David Saltzberg, check out the latest episode of the Science Talk podcast. And go to our Web site to read a new Q and A with The Big Bang Theory’s showrunner, Steven Molaro.
疑难词汇：
Mock vt. 嘲弄;模仿;使…失望;使…无效vi. 嘲弄，嘲笑n. 嘲弄;仿制品;嘲笑对象
adj. 模拟的;假装的;伪造的adv. 虚伪地
Episode n. 插曲;一段情节;插话;有趣的事件
Sitcom abbr. 情景喜剧(situation comedy)
