"Dear Dr. Winkle,

I am an actress and I am auditioning for the role of a young female physicist named Emily for a new sitcom called "Em Theory." I would greatly appreciate a chance to sit down with you and talk about what it's really like to be a woman in the field.

Sincerely,

Penny

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Whatevs. My office hours are 11-1 MWF.

Leslie

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When Penny found Dr. Winkle's office, the door was open. It was Wednesday at 11am. She was surprised to see a petite woman with ethereally pale skin and a mass of dark ringlets pulled back at the nape of her neck, bent over a forbidding tome. She looked less like a physicist than a character from a Jane Austen book (or at least a movie adaptation of a an Austen novel). She knocked on the open door.

"I hope I'm not interrupting... I'm Penny. The actress who e-mailed you."

The woman looked up and gave a dry laugh.

"Of course you are."

Penny had worn an adorable pink business suit for the occasion. The short skirt and long jacket said, "I'm smart and important but I'm feminine, too."

At least that's what the suit said to Penny before she maxed out her Mastercard buying it. She really needed to land this role. She'd lucked into her role as "hot girl next door" on the mega-hit "How I Met Two and a Half Men". A producer from the show had been at her table at the Cheesecake Factory and was immediately taken with her. He'd written the role for the plucky waitress and even made the character from Nebraska. For the longest time, Penny was afraid the man was making it all up to get her into bed. Then she met his 'partner', Frank. Within three months of moving to California, she had a recurring role on a hit show. She loved working on the program but the character didn't even have a name. She was simply "hot girl". Penny felt she needed something more to stretch her as an actress. Like a character name. Or some lines.

Under Dr. Leslie Winkle's withering gaze, Penny suddenly knew her pink suit said, "I'm a dumb blonde."

"It's so great to meet you, Dr. Winkle. I've never met a girl scientist before!" Penny was extra effusive hoping to make up for her poor first impression.

"That's me. Come for the breasts, stay for the brains. So this show is seriously called 'Em Theory'? That's kind of funny."

Penny nodded, her face blank.

Leslie grabbed a dry erase marker and went to her board. Penny pulled out her notebook and pen.

"M-theory unites the five string theories..." Leslie took another look at Penny's blank face, "Okay, let's take a step back. You've heard of atoms, right?"

Penny nodded, "I've heard of them..."

Leslie sighed heavily and began drawing an atom.

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An hour later, Penny kind of understood M-theory. She was sorry when some stupid undergraduate knocked on the door and Leslie needed to end their lesson.

"Leslie. You are a genius!" Penny gushed.

"Yeah. That's why I get paid the big bucks," Leslie smirked but then she looked thoughtful. She told her student to wait while she took Penny down the hall to meet Leslie's "boyfriend."

"I'm still tentatively vetting him as a potential life mate. He has a lot of potential but he definitely comes with baggage."

"Kids?"

"A crazy roommate."

"Co-dependent?" Penny had dated guys like that.

"Way past co-dependent, more like fusion."

Dr. Leonard Hofstadter looked exactly the way Penny thought he would. He was short, bespectacled, and rumpled. His face was handsome with sensitive eyes and a mop of Botticelli curls to match Leslie's. He was writing an equation on a white board in red marker, the sleeve of his olive green button down was stained red from where it brushed across the board. He was the absent minded professor Penny had imagined filling the halls of Caltech.

She mouthed, "Your babies will be so cute!"

Leslie gave her a forced smile.

"Go. Away," he snapped without looking away from his work.

"Better talk nicer than that if you're hoping to get any this weekend," Leslie retorted dryly.

Leonard jumped and apologized, "I thought you were... someone else."

"Sheldon?" asked Leslie with a hint of derision.

"He's on this new kick about whether or not he could be Batman if he had the start up capital... Hi, I'm Leonard."

Penny was surprised by his friendly demeanor. He was so different from the cool and cynical Leslie. But then, looking at Leslie's face as she eyed at her "potential life mate", she didn't look so cool anymore.

"Penny is an actress and she's auditioning for some dumbass show about physicists. I just explained M-theory to her but now I've got some chucklehead in my office I need to take care of. I thought Blondie could hang out with you and your loser friends and see the real magic of science."

She didn't wait for an answer or say goodbye, she just turned on her heel and left. Leonard gave Penny another warm smile.

"Come meet my loser friends. You're in for a treat, it's steak'um day in the cafeteria."

xxxxxxx

Even from a distance, Leonard's friends looked... different. There was a smallish guy with a Dorthy Hamil haircut and rather startling green eyes. The color of his eyes was both complimented and totally overshadowed by the lime green turtleneck and bright yellow sweater he was wearing. There was a nice-looking Indian man in a hideous sweater vest who looked away nervously the moment Penny entered the room. The only normal looking guy was tall and lanky with short dark hair and bright blue eyes. He wore a Batman tee-shirt over a pale blue long sleeved shirt.

The guy in the batman shirt was probably Sheldon and she was pretty sure she knew which one was Rajesh. That made the guy in the turtle neck Howard.

"Howard can be a bit much with girls but he's harmless. Raj can't talk to women at all so don't be offended..."

"Not at all?"

"No. Not even Leslie and she tells him all the time she has a bigger dick than him. Sheldon. There's no explaining Sheldon. Just don't be offended."

"By what?"

"By anything he says. He's just... He's just Sheldon."

Penny immediately hit it off with Sheldon. He seemed wary of an intruder at the table but he was intrigued by the idea of a sitcom about physicists.

"Em theory. That's clever. It's about time network executives tapped the rich comedic vein that is accurately portrayed theoretical science. I have a joke you can use!"

The tall man pulled out a notebook and wrote an equation. When he turned it to the group, they all laughed heartily. Even Raj chuckled before he caught himself and went back to his awkward silence.

Penny stared blankly at the mess of numbers and symbols.

"It's a spoof of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation," explained Sheldon. He must have imagined he was being helpful.

"Why is there a kitty over the first part of the equation?" Penny asked, hoping she would somehow get the humor.

"That's Schrödinger's cat."

Leonard almost choked on his soda.

"I had no idea science was so funny!" She still wasn't sure science was funny but clearly these guys thought so and therefore, so would her character.

"We're full of surprises," added Howard with a creepy sly smile.

"You'd be surprised how many particle physicists have a whimsical side," mused Leonard.

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Penny spent the whole afternoon at Caltech. She quickly realized Leslie had a special gift for explaining the complex and making it accessible to those without her level of education. The rest of the science she heard was pure gobbledygook.

She spent an hour being hit on by Howard as he explained why he was an engineer but worked for the physics department. She was impressed by the fact he worked so directly with NASA and by the way he could turn everything into a double entandre. The fact he could do so in six languages was simply remarkable.

"I don't know Russian so I'm not sure what you're asking me, Howard, but somehow I know the answer is NO!"

She didn't learn much from Raj but Leonard explained his work the best he could while Raj stared at his hands.

"I'm sorry I can't explain it better, I only know the basics of astrophysics."

"Leonard, you're talking to a girl who just found out the sun was a star."

Every corner of Sheldon's office was filled with white boards.

"Sheldon is a theoretical physicist so... mainly he does that," Leonard pointed to Sheldon as he stared at his white board, stroking his chin, "and sometimes he writes things down."

"That's it?"

"The stuff he writes down is amazing. Really brilliant paradigm shifting stuff but most of the time... He just stands there thinking."

It took nearly five minutes for Sheldon to acknowledge their presence and only seconds to explain what he was doing.

"I'm working on a theory to explain and unify everything in the universe."

Penny wished him luck. He looked pleased and thanked her. Then he chased them out of his office.

They spent the rest of their time together using machines from Leonard's lab to freeze and heat up food. They exchange cell numbers so she could let him know how her audition went.

xxxxxxx

Penny met with her acting coach, Ellie, to create "Emily".

"Why is Emily a physicist?"

Penny kicked herself for not asking anyone that very question.

"Come on, Penny, make this character your own. Why is she a physicist?" Ellie prompted in a gentle voice.

Penny closed her eyes and thought of Sheldon.

"She wants to understand."

"Understand what?"

"Everything."