Einstein's Big Idea

2005 "The story behind the world's most famous equation, E = mc2"
7.8| 2h0m| G| en| More Info
Released: 11 October 2005 Released
Producted By: ARTE
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/einsteins-big-idea/
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Over 100 years ago, Albert Einstein grappled with the implications of his revolutionary special theory of relativity and came to a startling conclusion: mass and energy are one, related by the formula E = mc2. In "Einstein's Big Idea," NOVA dramatizes the remarkable story behind this equation. E = mc2 was just one of several extraordinary breakthroughs that Einstein made in 1905, including the completion of his special theory of relativity, his identification of proof that atoms exist, and his explanation of the nature of light, which would win him the Nobel Prize in Physics. Among Einstein's ideas, E = mc2 is by far the most famous. Yet how many people know what it really means? In a thought-provoking and engrossing docudrama, NOVA illuminates this deceptively simple formula by unraveling the story of how it came to be.

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Director

Gary Johnstone

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ARTE

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Einstein's Big Idea Audience Reviews

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.
Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
Justina The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Cihan "Sean Victorydawn" Vercan (CihanVercan) E=mc² is a scientific documentary about the understanding of energy of objects, and the history of this purview among its experts. This documentary is best for personal view, since there is no personification in its stories told. It could be a good choice for movie makers of sci-fi seeking for inspiration.After Benjamin Franklin's discovery of static electricity, the whole European science communities has begun working on the equations of force and mechanics. The plot grounds on Einstein's understanding of universe and how he differs from any scientist in the world. His courage of discovering the unknown and analyzing the inconceivable unites the Energy and the Mass, that no one could ever think of it. Einstein inspires from Michael Faraday, the founder of Electromagnetism and from James Clark Maxwell, the founder of the Celeritas(the speed of the light).The plot makes the huge mistake with not mentioning Thomas Edison for the development of the storage of the electricity and the static light. However on the book the writer David Bodanis talks about Voltaire and Edison upon the same issue. Again without mentioning the Einstein's development of Quantum Mechanics, the plot takes us to the invention of Nuclear Fission by unlocking the Uranium atom, and thus to the Manhattan Project and the World War-II.I found the storyline in such a mess, while trying to reveal Einstein's way of inspiration. It denies itself for the reason on the Light's traveling motion in space that is the square of its speed developed in numbers by a French academic 50 years before Einstein's developing the idea of taking the square measurement of light in order to find its motion in space. How could you develop a scientific thesis if its already accepted as a law 50 years before your thesis? As I know, no one else has ever thought of the light using it in a mathematical equation before Einstein. Anyway omitting this fallacy, I was fond of the explanation that the energy of an object can be described by its mass. It's said that the energy of an object equals to its mass multiplied by the square of the speed of the light. Because the rest is a mess, this documentary could have been a short film, if there would have been adequate personification of the characters introduced. Even though, it sure still is worth watching; and can fill out your expectations.
siderite As a science show, this was less populist than expected. It has stuck to facts and it has put them in perspective, a thing that is left mostly to the viewer in most other similar shows. Of course, actors and dramatization, complete with violin music and all that; it was unavoidable. There are people paying for this, so it must appeal to as many people as possible, no matter the methods.What is it about? Well, it is not a biography of Einstein, as the title might make you think. It is a history of the idea of E=mc2 and where is came from. Einstein is just a cog in an angrenage of people that made it possible.What is even better is that the science is made accessible and not just story told. It was a small revelation, but a revelation nonetheless, when the narrator asked "if you put pore energy into the movement of an object it moves faster, but it cannot move faster than the speed of light, no matter how much energy you put in. WHERE does the energy go?" and I finally understood why things have to get heavier as they reach the speed of light.As for the role of women as brainy visionaries, why not? As long as the story is accurate, the empowerment of women as a byproduct is irrelevant.
heroineworshipper Maybe it had more substance to someone not educated in science, someone whose never heard of basic physics, or someone from America, but this was 6 minutes of material diluted into 2 hours of endless synthetic dialog, narration, and wide shots of grass. The 2 hour length seems only to boost publicity and could have easily been condensed in to NOVA's normal 60 minute length.The first 90 minutes are about the unknown scientists behind early physics. There is no mention of Newton, Gallileo, DaVinci, like you expect from these stories. Instead its all about unknown scientists behind things like uranium chemistry. The story is most useful not as a means of learning about Einstein but learning about how the business of science works. A lot of unknown scientists did a lot of hard work only to get wiped out of the history books by historical events and each tiny piece of modern physics represents the entire life work of most of these scientists.The only reason this movie is staying on the hard drive is because it pays a lot of attention to the heroines behind E=mc2. Heroines who today would be depending on men to win the bread while they drove their kids to soccer games in their husband's SUVs, were making huge discoveries in the 18th and 19th centuries. A good line is when Einstein tells his wife the connection between time and light. She replies, "I'll check your math". Pretty good stuff.The last 30 minutes switch to autopilot, recounting how E=MC2 was used and is used today. It seemed to overemphasize an insignificant branch of research in USA and neglect the truly mind blowing research being done in CERN.
hedzup7up i thought the movie was fascinating. the movie tells the story of famous scientist albert einstein and all of the other people that helped him achieve his famous equation E = mc^2 (all indirectly of course). i am a physics student right now and really learned a lot although i'm sure non-physics people will be interested just the same. although it does explain a lot of physics theory, it isn't so much information that it's boring or anything like that. the actors are great and so is the narration (john lithgow)... it also looks fantastic in hd! i highly recommend checking this movie out, it's playing now on pbs (under the title Nova) and i'm sure it will be replayed frequently.