The Romance Resonance

"The Romance Resonance" is the sixth episode of the seventh season of the  The Big Bang Theory. The episode aired on October 24, 2013.

Summary
Sheldon makes an amazing discovery only to shoot himself down when he finds that he was in error. After Howard writes a song for Bernadette, Penny mulls over making a romantic gesture for Leonard.

Extended Plot
At the Cheesecake Factory, Penny is serving the rest of  the gang. She asks Sheldon who is very engrossed in his calculations and he tells her to not bother him since he is "in the zone". Amy comments that the last time he was this involved, he figured out electron transport graphing and who should get into his tree fort in case he ever got one. She adds that she didn't make the list. Penny wonders whether he wants to take a break and eat. Leonard reminds her that he is both happy and quiet. Bernadette and Howard so up late and apologize. Bernadette has some exiting news about the raccoon infections she just acquired. Howard makes he go wash her hands and then tells about the song he is writing for Bernadette for the anniversary of their first date. He wants them to play backup for him. Penny asks what horrible thing he is trying to make up for and Howard considers it money in the bank. Howard wonders if Sheldon will help in and he is so engrossed that he didn't know he was at the Cheesecake Factory.

Walking up the stairs, Leonard is talking about how great what Howard is doing for Bernadette. Penny wants to know why Leonard doesn't do something romantic about their first date. Since they hand broken up so many times, Leonard doesn't know which first date they are talking about. Leonard has done lots of romantic things for Penny, but it seems she hasn't done anything for him and sex doesn't count. She mentions the bed and breakfast, but Leonard set it up and all Penny did was have sex with him. Penny protests that she can be romantic, but Leonard doesn't believe it. Penny then becomes determined to romance his ass off. Sheldon who is still in the zone keeps walking up the stairs. Leonard figures that it will know what happened when he falls off the roof.

In apartment 4A, Sheldon is still deep in his whiteboard calculations. First Leonard offers him tea and he doesn't answer and then Leonard says that he hadn't spoken in hours and it worries him. Sheldon speaks, "Leonard, prepared to be humbled and weep at the glory of my geekness." Leonard looks at his work and is astounded that Shelton has figured out how to synthesize a new stable super-heavy element. Sheldon exclaims that no one except him have ever done that. Then he starts marching around the apartment chanting about his marvelous brain.

At work, Howard tells them that he is almost finished with his song. Leonard agrees to play the cello,but denies that it is "cool". Raj agrees to play his ukulele or that "tiny ridiculous guitar". Sheldon joins them talking about his discovery and he doesn't want to be carried around the cafeteria on their shoulders. He doesn't like heights, motion sickness or their necks touching his butt. Howard congratulated him and Raj called the discovery inspiring. a group in China had already tested his work on a cyclotron and got promising results. Leonard was impressed by this news. Sheldon tells them that they called it the greatest thing since the Communist Party. Sheldon likes China because they know how to keep people in line. Howard asks what comes next. Sheldon goes on with more testing, more success and more fame. Sheldon still promises to remain the same down to earth, humble Joe he has always been. Leonard tells him that that is good to know as Sheldon steals his cookie because he discovered an element.

Penny asks Raj to cal over and help her plan a romantic evening for her and Leonard. Raj tells her that the way to man's heart is through his.. "Pants." Penny says finishing his sentence. She adds that Leonard doesn't feel that sex counts. Raj thinks that it's sad that she has only one arrow in her quiver and she can't use it. Raj then tells her that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Penny is reluctant to cook for him since he's should a picky eater. Too salty. Too dry. Too burned and frozen at the same time. Raj then describes the end of the movie Dirty Dancing. He also mentions standing outside his window holding up a boom box which turned out from the movie Say Anything. Raj explains that he is a lonely guy who watches a lot of movies. Penny can't understand why it is so hard. Raj mentions that she has never had to do this since she is young, beautiful and men are always throwing themselves at her. Penny figures she can't be sorry for that.

While Sheldon is busy saving all his souvenirs from his discovery. Amy is helping him catalog them. She doesn't think that the Smithsonian will want the magic marker he used on his whiteboard to make his discovery. Those kind of comments are why she is not on the list for Sheldon's tree fort. Sheldon get a message that they are writing an article about him in the journal Physics Today. Amy is very proud of him. Next he picks up his copy of The Handbook of Chemistry and Physics he used in his work. Looking at it he realizes that the reaction rates he used were wrong. Instead of square centimeters, he used the units of square meters. Sheldon was off by a factor of ten thousand. Amy points out that the Chinese team did find the element. Sheldon concludes that there must be some resonance between the elements that he doesn't know about. Amy wonders if he just got lucky. Sheldon is hurt and says that he does not get lucky. Amy quietly says, "You and me, brother." even though even Amy says that this work is still ground breaking, Sheldon can't get beyond that the greatest scientific breakthrough of his life is based upon a blunder. He is not a genius, he is a fraud. Amy tells him that in neuroscience they often find something in one place in the brain that they thought was in another one. Then Sheldon gets madder that no its worst that now he is not just a fraud, he is a biologist.

The next day on the way to work, Leonard tells him to stop beating himself up. Sheldon thinks that he is getting credit he doesn't deserve and that it's going to haunt him for the rest of his life. That mistake will continue to stare back at him like the time Raj waxed Leonard's eyebrows. Sheldon wants it to stop, however, Leonard explains that once it's out there, it's out there. It's like the science equivalent of a sex tape. Sheldon shoots back that he's rather have a sex tape, which he also agrees that he doesn't know what one is.

The next day at the cafeteria, Howard is going over the final details of their performance for Bernadette. Raj wants to add a little rap to it, which Howard shoots down since he wants it to be romantic. Someone shouts out, "He is is," as Sheldon enters the room and applause break out. Sheldon objects as someone adds "Woo." Sheldon wants no more woos except for Dr. Woo who is at an adjacent table. He again asks everyone not to celebrate his bone-headed mistake. Raj asks if they did not find the element. Sheldon replies that the did find the element as applause again breaks out. He sits down and wonders how they can make them top loving him. Leonard replies that he could invite them to live with him.

In a private dining room, everyone is getting their instruments ready. Penny has a tamborine. Later Amy tells Sheldon that she agrees with him and is embarrassed by his mistake. Sheldon feels that that is the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to him which pleases Amy. Everyone is still proud of Sheldon who wants them to stop congratulating him for his discovery. Bernadette has a lab accident and ends up in quarantine so Howard and the gang end up doing Howard's song at the hospital. After an attempt at romance, Penny shows Leonard her collection of everything that he has ever given her and gets emotional over each item. Finally Amy and Sheldon are in his apartment. Sheldon blames her for being such a distraction to him and that he wants to kiss her. Amy then wakes up from her daydream looking euphoric.

Critics
To be entered.

Trivia

 * Sheldon feels that Amy said something romantic to him.
 * The first date of Howard and Bernadette took place in The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary (S3E05).
 * The experience of Sheldon in this episode is quite similar to that in The Electric Can Opener Fluctuation (S3E01): he thought he made a breakthrough in his study, but later found he had not.
 * This is not the first time that Bernadette gets quarantined because of careless mistake in handling of virus; last time the exactly same thing happened in The Justice League Recombination (S4E11).
 * The event that Sheldon focused on the electron transport in graphene happened in The Einstein Approximation (S3E14). It is curious that Amy mentions this event, since Sheldon and Amy did not get to know each other until The Lunar Excitation (S3E23), thus she could not have experienced this event. Furthermore, it is even weirder for Amy to say "The time before that, he was making a list of who's allowed in his tree fort if he ever gets one; still can't believe I didn't make the cut".
 * Quite curiously, when Penny shows Leonard the things that he have given her, the most romantic one, the snow flake that Leonard brought back from North Pole and preserved in polyvinyl acetal resin, does not appear. (presented in The Electric Can Opener Fluctuation, S3E01; later reappeared in The Toast Derivation, S4E17).
 * According to Simon Helberg's tweet, the song that (in the show) Howard writes for Bernadette, is (in reality) composed by Kate Micucci (who played Raj's ex-girlfriend Lucy in several episodes of Season 6) and Riki Lindhome (who played Ramona Nowitzki in The Cooper-Nowitzki Theorem, S2E06).
 * Most of the fomulae on Sheldon's white board show the predicted configuration of valence electrons, which are, actually, usually irrelevant to the synthesis of new heavy elements (which Sheldon and Leonard state in the show). Instead, in fact, these formulae usually related to the behaviors of chemistry elements in chemical reactions.
 * Sheldon claims that he doesn't want the group to hold him up on their shoulders and parade him (before he found out he made a mistake). However, this is exactly what he wanted them to do when he went to court for reckless driving, to which they refused as they went to Stan Lee's autograph signing. (S3E16)
 * Sheldon also takes a cookie from Leonard while bragging, however he normally doesn't touch other people's food in case it's contagious.

Quotes
To be entered.