Leslie Winkle

Leslie Winkle, PhD
File:Leslie Winkle.jpg Dr. Leslie Winkle with Sheldon Cooper (left)
First appearance	"The Fuzzy Boots Corollary"
Portrayed by	Sara Gilbert
In-universe information
Gender	Female
Title	Leslie Winkle, PhD
Occupation	Experimental physicist
Nationality	American

Leslie Winkle is a fictional character on the CBS television series The Big Bang Theory, portrayed by actress Sara Gilbert. She is another physicist who works in the same lab as Leonard Hofstadter.

Leslie Winkle, initially a recurrent character, was promoted to main cast during the second season, but demoted again once the writers realized they could not produce quality material for her for every episode.

Personality

In appearance, Leslie Winkle is essentially Leonard's female counterpart equipped with the black framed glasses and sweat jackets; even Penny says they make a cute couple.

Beside normal interactions in her work place, Leslie doesn't show much interest in pursuing social relationships; she gets along well with the guys, except Sheldon Cooper, whom she frequently mocks, and calls "dumbass". In response, Sheldon usually tries to insult her back, but without much success.

Leslie has been depicted somewhat as an office skank, having had sexual relationships with men only for personal gain, and with no feelings involved.

Work

Leslie specializes in high energy physics, particularly supersymmetry and dilepton calculations.

In the early episodes, Leslie is depicted in the lab using the equipment to prepare food. In one instance she investigated the time it took to heat a cup of Ramen noodles with lasers; in another occasion she froze a banana with liquid nitrogen and then shattered it with a hammer to put it in her cereal.

Sheldon has made fun of her research many times, urging her to quit and instead dedicate to home shores and child-bearing. In one occasion she was able to fix one of Sheldon's equations, and this greatly irritated him.

Leslie participated alongside Leonard, Howard, and Raj in the Physics Bowl; their team, PMS (Perpetual Motion Squad), defeated Sheldon's AA (Army Ants).

Relationships

At the beginning of the series, Leonard turned his attention to Leslie after he considered Penny was out of his league.

Before anything happened between Leonard and Leslie, she proposed they kissed to see if they had any chemistry at all. Though Leslie complimented Leonard on his kissing technique, she felt no arousal, and thus, no date occurred.

In another occasion, after a string quartet practice, in which Leslie played the violin, she offered herself to Leonard, and the two engaged in sexual intercourse. Later, Leslie made it clear she only used him to satisfy her sex drive under a time of stress, and subsequently dumped him.

After yet another failed attempt to date Penny, Leonard sought Leslie again. This time Leslie decided to take things more seriously; she committed to "the traditional relationship paradigm", she acted in a more feminine way and actively proposed that Leonard assumed the "male role". Leslie went as far as planning the number of kids they would procreate. The relationship ended when Leslie and Sheldon engaged in a discussion, and Leonard didn't take a side supporting Leslie's belief in loop quantum gravity against Sheldon's belief in string theory.

Some time after, during a paintball game, Leslie began an affair with Howard, and they slept together. Despite budget reductions, Leslie gave Howard access to new equipment, and invited him to a trip to Geneva to see CERN's supercollider. Howard realized he was being manipulated by Leslie, but he didn't have a problem with that. Although they only had a "friends with benefits" relationship, Howard still became depressed when Leslie dumped him some time later.

See also

• Leonard Hofstadter
• Sheldon Cooper
• Penny
• Howard Wolowitz
• Rajesh Koothrappali
• List of characters in The Big Bang Theory
• List of The Big Bang Theory episodes