Canadian Nobel Prize winner Arthur McDonald meets Big Bang Theory cast

Arthur McDonald, the co-winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on tiny particles known as neutrinos, visited the set of The Big Bang Theory last week in Burbank, California.

McDonald, who is a native of Sydney, N.S., and professor emeritus at Queen's University, said the show's science consultant, David Saltzberg, invited him to the taping on Tuesday night.

"[David] was a student of ours at Princeton University when I was professor there in the 1980s. He actually worked for us as a summer student," said McDonald.

'Geek of the week'

"When he heard about the prize, he sent me a congratulations and said, 'If you're in Los Angeles some time, perhaps you would like to come and sit in on a taping of the show.'"

McDonald says Saltzberg occasionally gets to bring real scientists the "geek of the week" to the set to meet the producers, writers and actors of the show.

The professor happened to be in California last week to speak at Caltech, so he called Saltzberg. McDonald brought his son and daughter-in-law to watch the taping at Warner Brothers Studios.

McDonald says he's a big fan of The Big Bang Theory. He praises it for being funny and relevant.

"All of the posters you'll see on the show, the discussion they have of topics are very topical and so on, and so from that point of view it's very well done," he said.

Photos with the cast

"For example, they were trying to buy liquid helium off the back of a truck a few of episodes ago and that's really a situation that's true in science these days. There's a shortage of helium and sometimes experiments get limited by the lack of availability of helium."

While on set, McDonald got photos with many of the cast members including Simon Helberg (who plays Howard Wolowitz), Melissa Rauch (Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz), Johnny Galecki (Leonard Hofstadter), Kunal Nayyar (Raj Koothrappali) and Brian Smith (Zack Johnson).

McDonald says it's good to see a show on the TV that talks about science.

"My hope is that it might inspire young people to go into science," he said.

"It's also nice to see that several of the women on the show are also scientists because I think we have a shortage of women in science."