@crysolite said:

I have been waiting to see Sheldon finally make his one big discovery that puts him on track to getting the Nobel Prize he's always wanted. Besides the military project, it seems like all Sheldon's character does now is putter around with Amy and the gang. Sometimes you forget that he's this extraordinarily brilliant person who has come close to making breakthrough scientific discoveries.

Well, it seems like a lot of what Sheldon has done in the past, especially, is theoretical stuff in theoretical fields that might not really lead anywhere if the theories aren't actually true. He was still trying to "prove" string theory even long after Dennis Kim told him that eventually he'd see it was a dead end. Even if he did a lot of "brilliant work" in a field that's a dead end, that it's a dead end seems like enough to me, at least, to make all that "brilliant work" ultimately useless. Otherwise it might be like giving a Nobel Prize to someone who manages to somehow "prove" that 2 and 2 is not 4. I learned in high school how to "prove" both that 1/3 + 2/3 = 1, or that it doesn't. Whichever I prefer at a given time. Nothing like that seems particular award-worthy no matter how "brilliant" it might be.