United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for long. Straddling a group of islands in the North Atlantic on the north-western flank of the European continent, and tenuously connected to France and therefore mainland Europe by the Channel Tunnel.

In the context of The Big Bang Theory, this is the native country of Professor Stephen Hawking. A man reverenced by Sheldon Cooper and who has made several cameo appearances on the show. It is possible that Leonard Hofstadter's starting point to his North Sea expedition would have been through a port on the east coast, possibly a university city such as Newcastle or Hull. Great Britain is also the home of the world-renowned universities known to the native British as "Oxbridge" - a catch-all conflation of "Oxford and Cambridge". Rajesh Koothrappali attended a Cambridge college in his earlier academic career, possibly one where Hawking taught.

Great Britain is also the home of several seminal sci-fi shows reverenced by the Caltech gang: Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, and the Supermarionation animations of Gerry Anderson.