Leonard Hofstadter

Leonard Hofstadter, PhD
Johnny Galecki as Dr. Leonard Hofstadter
First appearance	"Pilot"
Portrayed by	Johnny Galecki
IQ	173
In-universe information
Gender	Male
Title	Dr. Leonard Leakey Hofstadter, PhD
Occupation	Experimental physicist
Family	Beverly Hofstadter (mother), Michael (young brother), unnamed father and sister
Nationality	American

Dr. Leonard Leakey Hofstadter is a fictional character on the CBS television series The Big Bang Theory, portrayed by actor Johnny Galecki.

Leonard shares an apartment with colleague and friend Sheldon Cooper. They live across the hallway from Penny.

Leonard is the straight man of the series. The writers have toyed with a romance between him and neighbor Penny, with their unresolved sexual tension being a major force for drama.

John Galecki's character is named after actor/producer Sheldon Leonard and Nobel prize winner Robert Hofstadter.

Personality

Originally from New Jersey, Leonard is a Caltech experimental physicist who shares an apartment with Sheldon Cooper in Pasadena, California. He is usually seen wearing his characteristic black framed glasses, neutral colored sweat jackets, brown trousers, and physics-themed t-shirts.

Although Leonard feels at home with his geek colleagues, he wants more socially. He is instantly captivated by the presence of Penny, and from the beginning sets to conquer her.

In the early episodes, Leonard is reluctant to let Penny know about his recreational activities (such as Klingon Boggle) as he does not like to be seen as a nerd by her. While certainly a nerd by most definitions, he is much less socially awkward than Sheldon, and even Howard (who is too "creepy") and Raj (who can't talk to women).

Despite his attempts to reject his nerd status, Leonard owns, among other things, Star Wars hygiene products, an expansive Superman comic book collection and a Battlestar Galactica Colonial warrior's flight suit. Early in the series, Leonard tried to get rid of his collectables to show maturity and impress Penny. However, Leonard changed his mind when he saw Penny was already dating another man.

Knowing Sheldon best, Leonard is obligated to serve as a mediator between Sheldon and other people in many situations. For instance, when Penny and Sheldon engaged in fierce dispute, Leonard gave Penny the phone number of Sheldon's mother so she would call her son and scold him for his behavior, thus ending the fight.

Throughout the show's course, it has been mentioned that Leonard has a number of health problems. The malady mentioned most often is his lactose intolerance; eating any sort of dairy product causes Leonard to produce a toxic gas that, according to Sheldon, could be used by the military as a chemical weapon. Leonard also wears glasses because of myopia, and practically cannot see without them. At various points in the show, Sheldon also says that Leonard suffers from sleep apnea and gets carsick unless he sits in the front seat.

Family

All of the members of Leonard's family are accomplished scientists.

His mother, Dr. Beverly Hofstadter, is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist who has a personality almost identical to Sheldon's, including strict speech patterns, lack of social conventions, and attention to detail, and is principally responsible for the difficult childhood Leonard had.

Due to his mother's views, Leonard never celebrated his birthday when he was a child, and when she visited him she was not impressed with Leonard's unoriginal research. Leonard mentioned to Penny that when he was young he built a "hugging machine" in order to compensate for the lack of affection from his mother.

Beverly also mentioned that Leonard's brother and sister are more successful in their respective fields than he is. Leonard's brother, Michael, is a Harvard law professor and is engaged to the youngest appellatee court judges in New Jersey history, and Leonard's sister is a cutting-edge medical researcher working with gibbons to cure diabetes.

Leonard's father is briefly mentioned as an anthropologist. Sheldon pointed that Leonard's middle name, "Leakey", comes from famed archaeologist Louis Leakey, with whom Leonard's father had worked.

Work

With an IQ of 173, Leonard was 24 years old when he received his Ph.D.

Leonard works as an experimental physicist. His work often includes the use of lasers, such as a helium-neon laser or free electron laser, and his research topics have varied from Bose-Einstein condensates to soft cosmic rays at sea level.

Leonard designs experiments in order to prove theories but, according to the cynical Sheldon, his work is mostly derivative and thus unimportant.

His attempts to disprove the existence of dark matter were made moot by the work of another physicist. Yet, he resolved the latter by helping to solidify proof of the hypothetical matter's existence with a photomultiplier, was invited as keynote speaker to a topical conference by the Institute of Experimental Physics for his successful research on supersolids and has showed diverse knowledge of theoretical physics.

Relationships

Being a nerd, Leonard is usually shy around women but, unlike Sheldon, he actually cares about having a girlfriend.

Leonard became attracted to Penny within seconds of spotting her, and announced to Sheldon "our babies will be smart and beautiful". His infatuation with Penny becomes the major force that drives the series during the first seasons.

Beside Penny, Leonard has been involved with only a few other women. One of Leonard's former girlfriends that is mentioned in several occasions is Joyce Kim. Although she was never seen, many times Leonard's friends recalled that they were together for only 27 days, after which Joyce defected to North Korea.

Initially, after feeling that Penny was not for him, Leonard turned his attention to fellow scientist Leslie Winkle. The first time Leonard asked Leslie out he was rejected. His further relationships with her proved to be only short-lived casual sex encounters.

At the season one finale, Leonard finally managed to ask Penny out, and they had their first date. Subsequently, they broke up because Penny felt she wasn't as smart as Leonard would like.

Thereafter, Leonard began a stable relationship with Dr. Stephanie Barnett. Although the relationship went well, even earning Sheldon's approval, Leonard felt uncomfortable with Stephanie moving in with him, and they broke up.

In another occasion, during Leonard's mother visit, Leonard and Penny came very close to having sex, but he ruined the moment by talking about their childhood issues with his mother and her father, respectively.

In the second season finale, when the guys were going on a 3-month scientific expedition, Penny finally showed interest in Leonard, but kept her feelings a secret. In the third season premiere, Leonard and Penny finally started a romantic relationship, and made love for the first time.

See also

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