
Mensa-fied best friends and roommates Leonard and Sheldon, physicists who work at the California Institute of Technology, may be able to tell everybody more than they want to know about quantum physics, but getting through most basic social situations, especially ones involving women, totally baffles them. How lucky, then, that babe-alicious waitress/aspiring actress Penny moves in next door. Frequently seen hanging out with Leonard and Sheldon are friends and fellow Caltech scientists Wolowitz and Koothrappali. Will worlds collide? Does Einstein theorize in the woods?

Sheldon and Amy have their first fight since moving in together; Koothrappali is shocked at the realities of financial independence when he stops receiving support from his father.

When Penny and Bernadette go to San Diego for a pharmaceutical sales convention, Wolowitz is left in charge of the kids; Sheldon finds a book about experimenting on kids.

While Leonard prepares for a three-month science expedition, he and Penny re-evaluate their feelings for each other.

After tampering with Sheldon's Arctic-expedition data, the guys follow him back to Texas, which threatens Leonard's chances for romance with Penny.