[TBBT] Ch: 28 [The Windmill-Whiteboard Paradox] (Patreon)

AN: Okay. Pretty wholesome chapter if I say so myself. Hope you like it. 🫡👍

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[First Person POV]

The Audi rolled out of the parking garage and onto the street, its V10 engine producing a satisfying rumble as I accelerated into the evening traffic. Penny was already exploring the passenger seat, adjusting the headrest, testing the seat controls, and examining the buttons on the center console with considerable interest.

"Okay, this is totally ridiculous," she said, running her hand over the leather armrest. "My car has like three buttons, and one of them is just stuck in the dashboard. Look at this... I feel like I'm sitting in the Space Shuttle."

"Sadly, Audi left out the rocket boosters," I replied, checking my mirrors before changing lanes. "Though for what the dealership charged me, they really should've thrown them in."

Penny then turned her attention toward the sound system. She spent a minute figuring out the controls before discovering just how many speakers the car had. After playing around with the settings, she settled back into her seat and looked through the windshield.

"So, sweetie, where are we going?" she asked.

"Well, I figured we'd cruise around for a bit, maybe grab dinner somewhere. I bookmarked a place online earlier that had great reviews."

Penny turned toward me with an amused expression. "Wait a second. You buy a super-fancy sports car, pick up your girlfriend to take her for a spin, and you don't even have a destination?"

"In my defense, Penny, I signed the paperwork a few hours ago. It's been a pretty packed afternoon."

"Okay, I'll give you a pass on that one." She considered that for a moment before asking, "Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Sure," I nodded.

"Do you ever do anything just for fun besides taking me out for fancy dinners?"

"Of course I do," I answered, slightly offended by the accusation. "I play guitar, read comics, watch movies, play video games, and hang out with Leonard and the guys, plus... I've also been spending quite a lot of time with a certain beautiful blonde lately."

Penny smiled at that, although she wasn't satisfied with my answer. "Cute save, sweetie. No, I mean like... normal people fun! Going bowling, mini-golf, dancing, or just getting in the car and going somewhere with zero plan! When was the last time you did any of that?"

I opened my mouth to answer, then realized I couldn't remember doing much of that since being reincarnated. I'd spent most of my childhood studying, and university hadn't exactly left much room for ordinary teenage entertainment. Even during my first life, money and work had limited my options.

Penny watched me think for several seconds before laughing. "Oh, my God, you actually have to think about it! That is so sad! Okay, that's it... Tonight, I am officially in charge of fun. Take a right at the next light."

I glanced at her as I switched on the indicator. "On a scale of one to ten, how worried should I be right now?"

"Like an eight," she answered cheerfully, pointing toward the road ahead. "Now turn off that giant brain of yours and just drive where I point!"

Twenty minutes later, I found myself standing inside a miniature golf course, holding a brightly colored putter while Penny inspected the first hole with the confidence of someone preparing for a professional tournament.

"All right, Professor," she announced, placing her ball on the starting mat. "Let's see if those two PhDs of yours stand a chance against a girl who grew up playing Putt-Putt in Omaha."

I watched her line up the shot and send the ball neatly through a narrow opening. It rolled around the obstacle and stopped a short distance from the hole, allowing her to finish with an easy second stroke. Penny celebrated enthusiastically before stepping aside and gesturing for me to take my turn.

I examined the slope, estimated the angle, and adjusted my grip. Never played this game before, but how hard can it be? I can calculate everything and... Unfortunately, Penny noticed what I was doing.

"Babe, are you seriously doing math in your head right now?" she asked, leaning against her putter. "It's a plastic windmill, just hit the pink ball!"

"I'm calculating the optimal bank angle," I explained before taking my shot.

The ball struck the edge of the obstacle, bounced sideways, and rolled almost directly back toward my feet.

Ah, crap!

Penny burst out laughing so hard that she had to lean against the railing. "Oh, my God! That was incredible! Did your little math equation tell you to hit yourself in the shoe?"

I stared at the offending golf ball before looking at her. "Clearly, I failed to account for the coefficient of friction on cheap AstroTurf. And it's very rude to laugh at a man's scientific setbacks."

That only made her laugh harder.

Unfortunately, my performance didn't improve immediately. Penny won the next three holes, celebrating every successful shot and reminding me of the score whenever I started getting too confident. By the fifth hole, however, I'd finally gotten the hang of things and managed a hole-in-one.

I raised my putter triumphantly. "Ha! Witness the power of applied physics! Hole-in-one!"

Penny applauded with exaggerated enthusiasm. "Yay! Go you! Only losing by eight points now, sweetie!"

Despite my improved performance, she eventually won by six strokes. Naturally, Penny insisted on taking a photograph of the scoreboard, claiming she needed evidence in case I tried to deny my defeat later.

Our next stop was a casual bar with a small dance floor. When Penny took my hand and started pulling me toward the music, I immediately realized where the evening was heading.

"Just for the record, Penny, knowing how to play a guitar does not magically translate to moving my hips in public," I warned her as we reached the dance floor. "I'm slightly out of my element here."

"Relax, I've got you," she replied, placing my hands around her waist. "Just put your hands right here, stop looking like you're waiting for a pop quiz, and move with me."

My first attempts were embarrassingly stiff. I understood rhythm perfectly well, but following it with my entire body while a beautiful woman stood inches away presented an entirely different challenge. Penny found my discomfort hilarious, although she was patient enough to guide me through the movements.

After a few minutes, I finally stopped worrying about what everyone else might think. Penny moved closer as the music changed to something slower, slipping her arms around my neck while we swayed together.

"See? Look at you, you're a natural!" she said, smiling up at me. "You just needed to relax a little."

"What can I say? I have a world-class instructor," I replied, drawing her closer before leaning down to kiss her.

Penny returned the kiss, then pulled back with a pleased smile. "Mmm, flattery will get you everywhere, Honey. Keep swaying."

We stayed for nearly an hour before Penny announced that she was starving. I offered to take her somewhere nice, but she immediately rejected the suggestion and directed me toward a small diner she'd visited before.

Soon we were sitting in a booth with burgers, fries, and two enormous chocolate milkshakes. Penny had already stolen several fries from my plate despite having an identical serving in front of her.

"Seriously, Penny?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, well, stolen fries have zero calories and taste way better. Everybody knows that," she replied, completely unconcerned by my feelings. When I pointed out that both servings had come from the same kitchen, she simply smiled and stole another one.

I eventually surrendered and pushed my plate closer to her. The whole meal was cheaper than the wine from our first date, but I don't think I'd ever enjoyed dinner that much. At some point, I even forgot about eating and was happy just listening to Penny talk about anything that came to her head.

Penny noticed me while finishing her milkshake. "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Nothing. It's just... I've just had a really good time tonight," I admitted, reaching across the table to take her hand. "Even if you did blatantly hustle me on the back nine."

She laughed and squeezed my fingers. "Hey, I did not hustle you! It's not my fault the clown's mouth rejected your ball. And see? I told you we could have an awesome night for less than one appetizer at one of your expensive restaurants."

By the time we returned to the Audi, it was getting late. I drove around for another fifteen minutes before finding a quiet place where we could park and enjoy the view of the city lights.

Penny settled against my shoulder after I slipped an arm around her, looking perfectly comfortable as we sat together.

"So... did I officially teach the genius how to have a normal night out?" she asked, tilting her head to look at me.

"Without question. Though I'm definitely going to need more field research before a mini-golf rematch."

"Good, because next time I'm taking you bowling," Penny replied, clearly pleased with herself. "And fair warning... my high school team made regionals."

I laughed and leaned down to kiss her again. Somehow, losing at miniature golf, embarrassing myself on a dance floor, and eating burgers at a cheap diner had turned into one of the most enjoyable evenings I'd had in years.

And judging by the way Penny was smiling at me, she was already planning our next adventure.

Also, I'm gonna win next time. 

...

[Meanwhile, Apartment 4A] [3rd person POV]

Sheldon stood in front of his whiteboard, holding a blue marker in his right hand. He'd been staring at the same equations for nearly forty minutes, occasionally writing something in the margins before erasing it again.

Leonard had gone out for dinner with Howard and Raj after Sheldon wanted absolute peace and quiet. He went as far as to bring out the roommate agreement. So, as always, Leonard gave in.

He stared at the board for another minute before sitting down in his designated spot on the couch.

"Preposterous," he muttered. "Utterly preposterous."

He'd been working on the beta function of quantum chromodynamics, specifically the calculation describing how the strong coupling constant changed with energy. The negative beta function was essential to demonstrating asymptotic freedom, the property that allowed quarks to interact more weakly at sufficiently high energies.

It was established physics, and Sheldon knew the underlying mathematics perfectly well.

Which made Karl Peterson's accusation even more insulting.

An aerospace engineer had looked at his whiteboard during a language examination and somehow decided that he'd discovered an error.

Sheldon stood up again and approached the board.

"Clearly, the man conflated the non-Abelian gauge-group contribution with the quark-flavor term," he reasoned aloud, pointing his marker at the relevant expression. "A pedestrian blunder, though entirely predictable for someone whose crowning professional achievement is essentially building glorified carnival rides for astronauts."

He checked the calculation again, following the terms through several intermediate steps. The contribution from the gluon fields was correct. So was the coefficient associated with the number of quark flavors.

Everything appeared perfectly reasonable.

Sheldon returned to his chair, sat down, and immediately stood up again.

"And yet, why the insufferable smugness? Generally, when engineers are wrong in my presence, there is a telltale sweating and averting of the eyes."

That was the irritating part.

Karl hadn't hesitated when Leonard asked whether he'd found something wrong. Worse, he'd threatened to show the mistake to Howard Wolowitz.

Howard would be insufferable.

The possibility of Wolowitz discovering an error in his theoretical calculations was sufficiently unpleasant that Sheldon briefly considered whether moving to another university would be a reasonable precaution.

He rejected the idea after approximately three seconds.

"No. This is my apartment, that is my spot, and I am certainly not abandoning my position at Caltech because of a glorified Oompa-Loompa of science."

Returning to the board, Sheldon began working through the expression from the beginning. He carefully rewrote the one-loop beta function, checked his sign conventions, and compared the result against the equations he'd written earlier.

Twenty minutes later, he sat down again.

Five seconds afterward, he was standing.

Something wasn't matching.

Sheldon leaned closer, examining the transition between two lines near the middle of the board.

His marker stopped moving.

He looked at the preceding line, then the one below it.

For several seconds, his expression seemed to malfunction. His left eye twitched, the corner of his mouth pulled upward, and his eyebrows went through a series of increasingly peculiar movements, as though his brain couldn't decide which facial expression was appropriate for the situation.

He blinked twice, looked away from the board, then immediately looked back, desperately hoping he'd misread something.

Unfortunately, the equation remained unchanged.

An engineer had found an error in his calculations...

...An aerospace engineer.

"Oh, dear Lord."

A positive sign appeared where there should've been a negative one.