Lewis Hutchinson

Dr. Lewis Hutchinson, Ph.D., is an experimental physicist at the East London Institute of Technology, who formerly roomed with Thomas Carter in Apartment 4A. Now he and his wife Penny live in that apartment. They also formerly lived in Penny's (now Thomas and Amira's) apartment Apartment 4B. 
He is one of the members of the Sidemen and main male protagonists. Originally from Birmingham, Lewis attended University of Birmingham and was 20 years old when he received his doctorate with a Dissertation of the Year award for experimental particle physics. Having lived with Thomas for 1 decade as of Season 9, he and Lewis are best friends; however, Lewis can become very agitated by many of his eccentricities and often feels obligated to explain Thomas's behaviour and serve as a mediator between him and other people in situations – he's been described as the straight man of the Sidemen. While Lewis, along with his geek friends and fellow scientists, is somewhat socially inept, Lewis would like to be better accepted outside of his social group. Lewis is better-adjusted than his companions, has had more sexual partners than any other Sidemen and is more willing to try different things. He appears to be best suited as a leader of the group, with Thomas commenting how Lewis is the "Kirk" of their landing party. The romance between him and neighbour Penny, with their on-and-off relationship has been the major force for drama until Thomira started.
== Biography ==
=== Early Life ===
Lewis was born on May 4th, 1993, in Birmingham to Alfred and Beverly Hutchinson. Not much is known about his early life. He has two siblings: a younger brother named Michael and an elder sister whose name we don't know ("The Maternal Capacitance", S2E15).
At age five, Lewis dressed up as The Hulk, using his mother's make-up and made-up muscles (balloon muscles) with a bra of his mother's to stop them from sagging. He had dressed up as The Hulk cause he was always mad at his mom and he wanted to smash his way out of the house. At age six, he walked in on his mother and father naked. She was swatting his father's bottom with Lewis's brand new ping-pong paddle and Lewis thought it was a dream until years later. 
At age eight, his mother humiliated him by making him give back a ribbon at a science fair. He said it was his first science fair and that he had to give the ribbon back because he had done "Do Lima Beans React Better to Classical Music?. At age ten, he built a hugging machine to compensate for lack of affection which his father used to borrow. His father was an anthropologist who spent more time with a 2000-year-old skeleton of an Etruscan boy than with Lewis, who then expressed contempt towards him when he recalled this fact.
After graduating from secondary school, Lewis attended University of Birmingham and got his doctorate at age eighteen. In 2011, he met Thomas Carter, with whom he began sharing an apartment, but not before meeting Simon Minter and JJ Olatunji, eventually they met the rest of the Sidemen members and the eight guys became a group and hung out often. 
=== Season 1 ===
=== Season 2 ===
=== Season 3 ===
=== Season 4 ===
=== Season 5 ===
=== Season 6 ===
=== Season 7 ===
=== Season 8 ===
=== Season 9 ===
=== Season 10 ===
=== Season 11 ===
=== Season 12 ===
== Career ==
Leonard is a senior experimental physicist at the California Institute of Technology and has been published in several peer-reviewed journals. His honors include the Newcomb Medal. When he started at the university seven years ago as of the third season, he conducted classified government research on military rocket fuel capable of generating over 8,000 kN of thrust. His work often includes the use of high-powered lasers, and his research topics have varied from Bose-Einstein condensates and fundamental tests of quantum mechanics to cosmic radiation and dark matter. According to Sheldon, most of his work is extremely derivative.
With Sheldon, he co-authored a paper entitled "Paradoxical Moment-of-Inertia Changes Due to Putative Super-Solids", to be presented at an Institute for Experimental Physics topical conference on Bose-Einstein condensates. The findings contained therein show that at temperatures approaching absolute zero, the solid becomes a super-solid, a previously unknown state of matter, and the moment of inertia changes.
To study the soft component of cosmic radiation at sea-level, Leonard designed an experiment using a helium-neon laser. When the university received a new free-electron laser, he required access in order to perform his X-ray diffraction experiment. Subsequently, he procured a big government grant to see if high-powered lasers can be used to knock out incoming ballistic missiles, though he considered the concept improbable. After progress with his ongoing research regarding high-energy lasers, he worked on a front-projected holographic display combined with laser-based finger tracking.
His investigations into dark matter were rendered useless by Dr. David Underhill's observation of high-energy positrons, the first conclusive evidence for the existence of galactic dark matter. Yet, together, they examined the radiation levels of photo-multiplier tubes for a new dark matter detector. He later attempted to replicate the dark matter signal found in sodium iodide crystals by the Italians. Likewise, he has grown isotopically pure crystals for neutrino detection and built, with the aid of Howard Wolowitz, a multi-wire proportional counter for detecting cosmic particles.
Leonard has carried out a series of anti-proton decay experiments with negative results. His experiment consisted of twenty thousand data runs and no statistically significant results.
Dr. Hofstadter's tests of the Aharonov-Bohm quantum interference effect reached an interesting point when examining the phase shift due to an electric potential, wherein he set up the voltages using tunnel junctions. Though, given the parameters of his experiment, the transport of electrons through the aperture of the nano-fabricated metal rings was qualitatively no different than an experiment already conducted in the Netherlands per Sheldon and Penny. Their observed phase shift in the diffusing electrons inside the metal ring already conclusively demonstrated the electric analogue of the Aharonov-Bohm quantum interference effect. On the other hand, collaboration with Dr. Arthur Jeffries on a paper about nano-vacuum tubes was promising.
Since Stephen Hawking knew Dr. Hofstadter's research, Leonard was invited to join the professor's team, which sent an expedition to the North Sea to test hydrodynamic simulations of black holes. Leonard spent a period of four months looking into the possibility that one could find the equivalent of Unruh radiation in a large body of water, as the similarities of the equations of general relativity and hydrodynamics suggest.
Based upon a theory from Leonard, Sheldon wrote a paper detailing a theory that space-time is like a super-fluid. The paper was well received by the scientific community that included Professor Stephen Hawking. The theory is discussed in article in "Scientific America" and "Physics Today", the former didn't mention Leonard. Also, Leonard and Sheldon were invited to the University of California at Berkeley to lecture on their work, but missed it after they were detained for an incident at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch headquarters.
In "The Retraction Reaction", Leonard is interviewed on NPR and describes all these theories, but admits that physics hasn't found anything new recently. He gets called into Janine Davis' office and is told to issue a public retraction non his comments. After all the guys gets depressed and wonder what they are doing professionally after it seemed that Leonard was right, they go to visit the grave of Richard Feynman which rekindles their love of science and working at it for the fun of it.
In "The Novelization Correlation" Leonard is writing a book about a physicist solving a murder at the CERN collider in Switzerland.
In "The Grant Allocation Derivation", he has to distribute some excess grant money which he takes very seriously. After turning down many requests looking very decisive, he can't decide between the last three so he buys himself a new laser.
In "The Decision Reverberation", Penny again tells Leonard that he should stand up for himself more. Leonard decides that he wants to be the principle investigator on a plasma physics study so he prepares a proposal and plans to threaten to quit if President Siebert will not accept his proposal. Penny is worried because she doesn't want to move. Even though President Siebert turned him down, Leonard does get called back and offered a different job as co-lead on a photo entanglement project. Leonard is happy and Penny is very proud of him.
== Personality ==
Although Lewis feels at home with his geek colleagues, he is reluctant to let others know about his recreational activities (such as Klingon Boggle), as he does not like to be seen as a geek and wants to be more social. Sweet, thoughtful, kind, intelligent, mature, sardonic and socially awkward, but well-meaning, Lewis also seems to be the most well-adjusted and sensible one of The Sidemen, and is quick to try new things apart from his geek friends.
Despite his reasonable nature, he can sometimes display selfishness, normally putting his needs before his friends' well-being, as told by Thomas Carter who is the only one to realize this. During the group's expedition to North Pole he tricks Thomas into thinking that he had definitively proven slow moving magnetic monopoles when in reality it was simply static from him switching the electric can opener on and off as he they wanted to kill Sheldon. When they return from the North Pole he is totally humiliated among his scientific peers. Thomas fled to Ireland to live with his mother, Lewis, despite the trick being his idea, wanted Simon, JJ, Ethan, Harry, James and Vik to go to Ireland without him to convince Thomas to come back, just so that he could have first sex with Penny. Another example is when he refuses for Zack Johnson to be Superman for the comic book store's costume party because Zack has actual muscles. Another example of Lewis's selfishness was when he was sleeping with Vik's sister Priya, and didn't seem to care how Vik felt about the situation.
A lifetime of being denied and refused praise and acclaim that he unavoidably deserves (Because his mother had absolutely little regard or admiration for him and often demolished his infrequent moments of happiness as a child, and Thomas relentlessly unknowingly demoralizes him and his accomplishments out of egomania and sheer apathy) has led to Lewis yearning for recognition for his intelligence, compassion and determination. He becomes extremely bitter when he discovers that a major science paper that he and Thomas cooperatively wrote was published with only Thomas's name (which was obviously Thomas's fault due to Thomas being an arrogant credit hog). He also admits to Thomas that he is an egotist who needs his big ego to be constantly validated from people who are much less smarter than he is while presenting their paper to a class of graduate students.
As a result of how he was raised (Unloved and under-appreciated, due to the lack of love from his parents, his mother's views of raising children as obviously opposed to his father's), he was not as intelligent as his siblings and his mother having been unloving, unsupportive and neglectful altogether and treating Lewis as a personal science experiment instead. Lewis was seen as not any happier than Thomas (who grew up loved) and frequently insecure and sometimes unhappy. But that soon changed during his second relationship with Penny. She made him more confident during their relationship (Since Penny always gave him lots of love and affection and Lewis was only in love with her the day they first met) and by the time they were married, Lewis was much happier than he had ever been in his life, having married the love of his life, as said by Amira and Bernadette in "The Separation Oscillation" (even his mother thought that perhaps she was wrong that they shouldn't be together due to Penny's education status, but when she saw how happy Lewis had been since their marriage, which she had never seen before, she thought they were a good couple together).
He generally has the least amount of difficulty interacting with "ordinary" individuals and probably the most normal, as compared to Thomas (who is unable to grasp social norms), JJ (who used make misogynistic and sexists comments in his YouTube videos and public), Ethan (who is often mocked for his weight until he lost 30kgs in season 6), Harry (who is revealed to have a drug problem and cocaine addiction), Vik (who is unable to talk to women outside his family unless under the influence of alcohol until the end of season 6), and even James (who is often seen as "creepy" when flirting with women) since Lewis is the only one of them interested and quite adept in building interpersonal and social relationships with other people. Compared to his friends, he is also relatively the most successful with women.
Between Thomas and him, Lewis is the only one who feels that he "should do something" when Penny begins to recount her recent breakup. Lewis usually blurts out the wrong things in front of women when he is nervous, such as when he's trying to invite Penny to lunch and mentions that curry is a natural laxative, or, as in "The Plimpton Stimulation" where he can't decide what to say he will often combine thoughts. i.e. "Hi-lo," instead of "Hi," or "Hello."
Despite his attempts to reject his geek status, Lewis owns, among other things, Star Wars hygiene products, an expensive Superman comic book collection, a "Battlestar Galactica" Colonial warrior's flight suit, and a light saber that he calls a "glow stick".
Lewis is indicated to be proficient in literature, history, and music as well as the sciences - he is able to solve a woman's crossword puzzle in a matter of seconds (the answers were mostly literary in nature) and he can play the cello.
Having lived with Thomas for many years, they are best friends, and he is obligated to explain Thomas's irrational behaviour and serve as a mediator between him and other people in many situations; however, Lewis often gets very irritated by much of his behaviour. For instance, when Penny and Thomas engaged in a fierce dispute, Leonard gave Penny the phone number of Thomas's mother so she would call her son and scold Thomas for his behaviour, thus ending the fight, as shown in the episode "The Panty Piñata Polarization".
Lewis is also upset that Thomas dislikes his favourite show, "Babylon 5", which Thomas refuses to allow to be watched in his apartment. Like everyone, he dislikes his friend's habit of rattling off different trivial facts. Lewis's IQ of 173 is not as high as Thomas's and the latter has scoffed at Lewis's whiteboard theories as common enough to be "scribbled on the wall of every men's room at MIT."
Lewis seems to get along well with James Harry and Ethan. Lewis and James even have a Girlfriend Pact, which Lewis invoked in "The Desperation Emanation" so that James would help him get a girlfriend. In "The Peanut Reaction", James tried to make Lewis's birthday a surprise, going as far as getting himself hospitalized, proving to Lewis how much James cares for him though Penny also proposed him the phone number of one of her slutty friends. Lewis also seems to get along well with Vik and Simon.
Lewis has a lot of conditions. He is lactose intolerant, asthmatic, bespectacled due to myopia, prone to carsickness and migraines, gets a bloody nose after jogging, suffers from sleep apnoea, allergies and a lot of ear infections, and possesses a genetic predisposition to heart disease. Lewis's primary health concern is his lactose intolerance. He avoids eating even small amounts of dairy products (including cheese, yogurt and butter), as well as melon and desserts at The Cheesecake Factory, for fear of his intestines blowing up like a balloon animal and resulting in the emission of a noxious gas that Thomas maintains can be weaponized. This digestive trait is often the subject of teasing. According to the pilot episode, he cannot process corn either.
Lewis is somewhat neurotic, insecurely tilting his head as he speaks nervously, as well as avoiding eye contact and squinting. When under great stress, his voice is elevated to a high-pitched whine, when he lies or gets sweaty. At times, Lewis's demeanour seems very low energy and somewhat irritable. Clumsy, he often bangs his head, which induces vomiting. Lewis is incredibly sensitive about his height (he stopped growing in year 10), although he enjoys pointing out that James is shorter.
== Appearance ==
Lewis is a short, skinny, little man, originally in his early twenties but he's in his early thirties in the present day. He is 5' 5" (165.1 cm) with brunette hair, light skin and brown eyes. Penny thinks that his eyebrows are weird. 
His wardrobe includes black thick-framed glasses, a large variety of coloured and patterned sweat shirts with hoods worn under a neutral coloured jacket, brown trousers and low-cut black Converse All Stars sneakers. Like Thomas, Lewis often wears physics-themed t-shirts (under his other layers), but he has a much wider selection; many of his t-shirt themes deal with social issues such as renewable energy (wind farms) and recycling, as well as animal issues (rescue programs and themes around endangered species). Lewis's wardrobe has its own section on the Wiki. Thomas once said, male members of Lewis family get bald very early, yet neither Lewis or his father are bald nor have lost much hair.
== Family Members ==
== Relatives ==
== Relationships ==
== Trivia ==
== Gallery ==
Category:Sidemen Characters