The Bat Jar Conjecture is the thirteenth episode from Season 1 of The Big Bang Theory, first aired April 21, 2008. Directed by Mark Cendrowski. Teleplay by Bill Prady and Robert Cohen, based on a story by Stephen Engel and Jennifer Glickman.
The guys decide to participate in the annual Physics Bowl. For their first practice round on a Saturday with Penny hosting, Sheldon keeps cutting in and trying to answer the questions for his partners. Leonard, Howard and Penny point out Sheldon is being selfish and he should share the glory with his teammates out of consideration.
Sheldon refuses, wanting to keep hogging the spotlight all for himself and dismissing there's such a need to "share" the questions. Fed up with Sheldon's ego, Leonard boots him off the team with a Batman cookie jar as consolation. The rules require teams of four, so now Leonard's team is one short.
Leonard fills in Sheldon's gap with his ex, Leslie (Sara Gilbert), who is only convinced to join Leonard's team after finding out that Sheldon will be on an opposing team. Sheldon disparaged Leslie's scientific acumen, so the Physics Bowl presents an opportunity to get even.
To fill out his team, Sheldon hires CalTech's janitors and cafeteria workers. They are to sit quietly as Sheldon gives all the team's answers.
On the day of the competition, Leslie's slightly surprised to find that the team is called the Perpetual Motion Squad and they're to wear shirts with the acronym PMS on them. Sheldon's team are the Army Ants, they wear uniforms inspired by Star Trek.
Both teams do very well against each other in the Physics Bowl. After the next to last question, PMS has 1,175 points, with every team member answering questions, while the Army Ants are not far behind with 1,150 points, with Sheldon answering every question.
The final question, for 100 points, requires solving a complicated equation. All PMS team members are stumped. Leonard gives a very weak guess, and Sheldon stays quiet until suddenly his teammate Dmitri (Adam Gregor) answers "Negative 8 pi alpha". Sheldon lashes out at Dmitri, saying their arrangement was only Sheldon may answer questions.
Dmitri explains he was a renowned physicist back in the Soviet Union before moving to America for a new life. Sheldon doesn't care for his background, and so Sheldon refuses to endorse Dmitri's answer as the team's answer, allowing Leonard's team to win. Leonard, while proud of his new trophy, wonders if Sheldon will ever realize the true potential of teamwork.
Tropes
- Almighty Janitor: Dmitri.Dmitri: Here, I am janitor. In former Soviet Union, I am physicist.
- Artistic License – Biology: Sheldon remarks, "By that logic I should answer all the anthropology questions because I'm a mammal!" Anthropology encompasses the study of specifically humans and their ancestors regarding cultures and evolution, not mammals in general.
- Artistic License – Physics: The final Physics Bowl question was badly written and the answer could not have been what was stated in this episode.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Referenced by Raj, who wonders why everyone on Star Trek: The Original Series has the same parts.Raj: How come no one ever said "Hey, Captain Kirk, get that thing out of my nose?"
- Celebrity Paradox: Raj cites two TV actresses who are also known to be gifted academics, "the girl who played TV's Blossom" (Mayim Bialik) and "the girl from The Wonder Years" (Danica McKellar). Both actresses would later appear in Season 3 of The Big Bang Theory playing characters other than themselves; jarringly, Bialik's character Amy Farrah Fowler — who shares Bialik's specialty of neurobiology, which Raj mentions here — would become a member of the main cast from Season 4 onwards.
- Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Sheldon complains to and scolds Dmitri for answering the Physics Bowl's final and notoriously difficult question instead of thanking him for it. Had he taken Dmitri's answer, or just sit there and stayed quiet, Sheldon would have won the Physics Bowl and taken home the trophy.
- Consolation Prize: Sheldon is given a Batman cookie jar to soften the blow of getting kicked off the Physics Bowl team. He's devastated, but keeps the jar.
- Embarrassing Initials: Sheldon insists on naming his team the Army Ants and printing the letters "AA" on their uniforms. While Leonard sees the problem with that, he proves himself no better, since he and the other guys name their team the Perpetual Motion Squad and wear T-shirts with the letters "PMS" on them.
- Ethnic Menial Labor: Aside from Dmitri, the low-level workers Sheldon gets to pad out his team are people of color.
- Evil Laugh: Raj demonstrates one.
- Fan Disservice: Howard celebrates his team's victory by ripping his shirt off and dancing around bare-chested, to absolutely no one's delight.
- Four-Man Band: The Physics Bowl requires four people. Sheldon snarks that by that logic, they should also play bridge or enter the Olympic Bobsled competition.
- Only Sane Man: Leonard
- The Smart Guy: Leslie Winkle, who also doubles as The Heart
- The Pervert : Howard ("Mr. Wolowitz, this is your second warning")
- Butt-Monkey: Raj
- Glory Hound: Sheldon's main problem in this episode, as his desire to hog all the answers for himself is what both gets him kicked off the team and costs him the competition.
- Hand Wave: When Penny questions how Raj, who is stricken mute when in the presence of any woman, is going to compete in the physics bowl, Leonard vaguely explains that he actually has no trouble with public speaking, just direct conversation. This hits a snag once Leslie joins the team and Raj is still perfectly capable of competing while sitting right next to her. Even though in theory this still falls in with Leonard's explanation, as he never speaks to Leslie directly, it's outside of what he's shown to be capable of in other episodes.
- How the Mighty Have Fallen: Dmitri. See Almighty Janitor above.
- Hypocrite: Sheldon keeps defending him cutting off his friends' answers to the physics questions by stating it doesn't matter who answers, it only matters if it's correct. At the actual Physics Bowl, Sheldon falters at the final question (that comes out as the only one to matter) and he lashes out at Dmitri for answering on his part (all because Sheldon wants all the glory to himself) with Dmitri even calling out Sheldon failing to give an answer.
- The Needs of the Many: Sheldon seems adamant and immovable in his refusal to compete in the Physics Bowl. But all it takes to change his mind is to quote that famous line from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Sheldon's convinced, he doesn't even question whether the group (the many) really has a genuine need to compete in the Physics Bowl.
- Oh, Crap!: Sheldon has one when he realizes that Leslie Winkle has joined Leonard's team.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: In The Stinger, Penny gives Sheldon and Leonard one final quiz to see who's smarter, this time covering pop culture. Penny asks questions about The Brady Bunch, Van Halen, Sean Penn, Britney Spears, etc. Both Sheldon and Leonard do miserably on the quiz. On a question about People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive, instead of challenging the clarity of the question, Sheldon guesses William Shatner and Leonard guesses Patrick Stewart.
- Russian Guy Suffers Most: Dmitri, the Russian guy on Sheldon's team, tries to help Sheldon win the Physics Bowl by answering the seemingly impossible-to-solve question at the end. Sheldon chews him out saying that Dmitri agreed not to answer any questions, leading to Dmitri sheepishly defend he was an expert physicist back in Russia.
- Salt the Earth: Referenced as one of the ways the Romans conquered their enemies.
- Straw Misogynist: Sheldon telling Leslie she should abandon her particle atomic research for laundry and child-bearing.
- Strong Ants: Sheldon wants to name the team the Army Ants, because relative to their size, Army Ants are the strongest creatures.
- This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!Sheldon: Oh, and another thing. It's on, bitch!
- Was It Really Worth It?: Leonard asks Sheldon if losing as an individual means more to him than winning as a team and take only partial credit for victory. Sheldon most likely would have answered "Yes" if he understood this question when Leonard asked him.
- Worthless Foreign Degree: Dmitri's Physics training from Mother Russia.
