Albert Einstein's Big Idea HD Documentary (With 17 Subtitles)

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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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(ticking)

MAN:
When we think
of E equals m c-squared,

we have this vision of Einstein
as an old, wrinkly man

with white hair.

MAN 2:
E equals m c-squared
is not about an old Einstein.

It's actually about a young,
energetic, dynamic,

even a sexy Einstein.

ACTOR AS EINSTEIN:
What would I see if I rode
on a beam of light?

MAN:
Perhaps some sort

of electrical force is emanating

outwards from
the wire.

What?

MAN:
Faraday, my dear boy,

electricity flows
through a wire,

not sideways to it.

You see, John?

You see?

MAN:
It is my great ambition
to demonstrate

that nature is a closed system;

that in any transformation,

no amount of matter, no mass,
is ever lost,

and none is gained.

The people...

Lavoisier.

It is they who will determine
right and wrong.

( both laughing )

MAN:
Emilie,

you are
being absurd!

Why ascribe
to an object

a vague and immeasurable
force like vis viva?

It is a return
to the old ways!

Are you capable of discovering
something of your own?

I discovered you!

WOMAN:
There is no right time
for the truth.

Frãulein Meitner?

Yes?

Otto Hahn.

The nucleus is our focus.

The Jewess endangers
our institute.

We can't harbor
a Jew!

If she stays,
the regime will
shut us all down!

They've split the atom.

No, no, no.

You've split the atom!

Energy equals mass
times the square of
the speed of light!

( laughs )

Would you like me to check
your mathematics?

Major funding for NOVA
is provided by the following...

Shouldn't what makes
each of us unique

supporting NOVA and promoting
public understanding of science.

Funding for "Einstein's
Big Idea" is provided

by the National
Science Foundation,

where discoveries begins.

And by the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation,

to portray the lives
of men and women

engaged in scientific
and technological pursuit.

And the U.S. Department
of Energy,

fostering science and security.

And the Universities
Research Association.

Major funding for NOVA
is also provided

by the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting,

and by PBS viewers like you--
thank you.

NARRATOR:
A hundred years ago,

a deceptively simple formula
revealed a hidden unity

buried deep in the fabric
of the universe.

It tells
of a fantastic connection

between energy,
matter and light.

Its author was
a youthful Albert Einstein.

It's the most famous equation
in the world:

E equals m c-squared.

MAN:
All aboard!

( train whistle toots )

LITHGOW:
But while we've all heard

of Einstein's big idea,

very few of us know
what it means.

In fact, E equals m c-squared
is so remarkable

that even Einstein wasn't sure
if it was really true.

WOMAN:
Albert, darling,

you're later than I expected.

We've only got sausage
and cheese tonight.

What is it?

We need to talk.

Has something happened?

Oh, no, nothing.

Sorry, no.

I spent most of the day

staring out
the window at work
looking at trains,

and I started
to think

about an object
and how much energy it had.

Can I explain it to you?

Of course you can.

But first...
( kisses ) dinner!

Hmm? Food, then talk.

I think the gods
are laughing at me.

LITHGOW:
The gods were not laughing
at Einstein.

He'd united
in one stunning insight

the work of many
who had come before him--

scientists who'd fought
and even died

to create each part
of the equation.

The story
of E equals m c-squared

starts long before Einstein

with the discovery
of "E" for energy.

In the early 19th century,

scientists didn't think
in terms of "energy";

they thought in terms of
individual "powers" or "forces."

These were all disconnected,
unrelated things:

the power of the wind,
the force of a door closing,

a crack of lightning.

( thunder rumbles )

The idea that there might be

some sort of overarching,
unifying energy

which lay behind all these
forces had yet to be revealed.

One lowly man's drive

to understand the hidden
mysteries of nature

would begin to change all that.

MAN:
Young Michael Faraday hated
his job.

He was uneducated,
the son of a blacksmith.

He'd been lucky to become
a bookbinder's apprentice.

But Faraday craved one thing.

He craved knowledge.

He read every book
that passed through his hands.

He developed
a passion for science.

All of his free time
and his meager wages were poured

into his self-education.

He was on the threshold
of an incredible journey

into the invisible world
of energy.

LITHGOW:
Faraday had impressed
one of his master's customers

and was rewarded with a ticket
that would change his life.

Excuse me, please.

Can I pass, please?

"Can I pass?"

Some of us are trying
to improve ourselves,

if people will let us.

Of course, of course--
pass, pass.

This way
to a better life.

( chuckles )

MAN:
In the early 1800s, science was
the pursuit of gentlemen,

something Faraday
was clearly not.

He had a rudimentary education,

he'd read widely,
he'd gone to public lectures,

but in 1812 he was given tickets
to hear Sir Humphry Davy,

the most prominent chemist
of the age.

( groans )

( laughing )

LITHGOW:
Nineteenth-century scientists
were the pop stars of their day.

Their lectures were
hugely popular.

Tickets were hard to come by,
and Davy reveled in his status.

They're waiting.

I know.

LITHGOW:
He was also a keen follower
of the latest fashion--

nitrous oxide, or laughing gas.

He said it had all the benefits
of alcohol without the hangover.

( laughing )

( clears throat )

Electricity, ladies
and gentlemen,

a mysterious force that can
unravel the confusing mixture

of intermingled substances

that surround us and produce
pure... pure elements!

GATES:
Davy was an absolutely
first-rate scientist.

However, many will come to say

that his greatest discovery is
Michael Faraday.

DAVY:
Metals-- unknown, that is,

until I isolated potassium
from molten potash and sodium,

as I showed you last time,
from common salt.

( voice fades ):
That same magical electric...

LITHGOW:
Faraday may not have been born
a gentleman,

but he wasn't going to let
class barriers stop him

from pursuing
a career in science.

He worked for nights on end

to bind his lecture notes
into a book for his new hero.

FARADAY:
Lord, help me to think
only of others...

to be of use to mankind.

Help me be part
of the great circle

that is your work and love.

Lord, I am your servant.

This is excellent work, Faraday.

So, what is it you aim
to do with your life?

My desire, sir, is
to escape from trade,

which I find vicious
and selfish,

and to become
a servant of science,

which, I imagine, makes its
pursuers amiable and liberal.

( laughs briefly )

Really?

Well, I shall leave it
to the experience of a few years

to set you right on that score.

Look, I haven't anything
at the moment.

I'll send a note
if anything comes up.

LITHGOW:
Despite this
humiliating setback,

Faraday was determined to
break free from his daily toil.

His patience was rewarded.

( explosion, then Davy screams)

DAVY:
Newman...

meet Mr. Michael
Faraday.

He's going to be my helper
while I recover.

He assures me he is
a Christian fellow.

Perhaps with God
and Faraday in charge
of the chemicals,

you and I will be safe
in our place of work.

Thank you,
Professor Davy.

Welcome, Faraday.

Oh, no, thank you,

and thank you,
Sir Humphry.

Just stick to your job
and do as you're told

and you'll be fine, Faraday.

LITHGOW:
Faraday became the laboratory
assistant, eagerly absorbing

every scrap of knowledge
that Davy deigned to impart.

But in time, the pupil
would surpass the master.

The big excitement of the day
was electricity.

Another charge, Newman.

LITHGOW:
The battery
had just been invented,

and all manner of experiments
were being done.

But no one really understood

what this strange force
of electricity was.

GATES:
The academic establishment
at the time thought

that electricity was, you know,

like a fluid flowing through
a pipe, pushing its way along.

But in 1821,
a Danish researcher showed

that when you pass an electric
current through a wire

and place a compass near it,

it deflected the needle
at right angles.

LITHGOW:
This was the first time

researchers had seen electricity
affect a magnet,

the first glimpse of two forces

which had previously been seen
as entirely separate

now unified
in some inexplicable way.

Faraday, come
look at this.

You're the bright
spark around here.

Perhaps you
can work it out.

Oersted's reported
an amazing finding.

We're just
replicating it here.

Let's try the compass
on the other side.

MAN:
Now, that is

remarkable.

But if the electrical force
is flowing through the wire,

why does the needle

not move in
the same direction,

parallel
to the wire?

Quite.

Let's try turning
the whole apparatus round.

Again, Newman.

So, the electrical force goes
this way.

The compass points that way.

How can one affect the other?

( utters sound )

Perhaps the electricity
is throwing out

some invisible force

as it moves
along.

What?

Perhaps some sort of electrical
force is emanating

outwards from
the wire.

Oh, my dear boy, let me tell you

that at
the University of Cambridge,

electricity flows
through a wire,

not sideways to it.

That may be
what they teach
at Cambridge,

but it doesn't explain
what's happening

before our eyes.

No, now, let's just get on.

Let's swap the compass
to below the wire.

LITHGOW:
Why the compass was deflected
at right angles,

why the electricity was
affecting the compass at all,

dumbfounded Davy
and many others.

MINISTER:
As we celebrate the marriage
of Michael and Sarah...

LITHGOW:
For Faraday, however,
the problem became an obsession.

It was a fascination
inspired by his religion.

For him, the problem was a way

to understand God's
hidden mysteries.

BODANIS:
There is a small, almost
persecuted group in London

called the Sandemanians.

They were a religious...
not really a sect,

they were just a small subset,
sort of like Quakers.

Faraday was a member
of that group.

It was a very gentle,
decent group.

They believed that underneath
the whole surface of reality,

everything was created by God
in a unified way;

that if you opened up
one little part of it,

you could see
how everything was connected.

Michael Faraday was someone

who, like Einstein, thought
in terms of pictures.

BODANIS:
Faraday was different
from anybody else.

He had a flair for understanding
his experiments,

for understanding what was
really going on inside them.

LITHGOW:
By methodically placing
a compass

all around an electrified wire,

Faraday started
to notice a pattern.

What everyone else at the time
had been taught

was that forces travel
in straight lines.

Faraday was different.

Faraday imagined
that invisible lines of force

flowed around an electric wire.

And then he imagined

that a magnet had similar lines
emerging from it

and that those lines would get
caught up in this flow.

It was a bit
like a flag in a wind.

LITHGOW:
But Faraday's great leap
of imagination

was to turn this experiment
on its head.

Instead of an electrified wire
moving a compass needle,

he wondered if he could get
a static magnet to move a wire.

I've never seen you
like this, Faraday.

( chuckling ):
You look like
a happy child.

I'm shaking, Newman.

Underneath, I'm shaking.

( gasps )

You see, John?

You see?

Yes.

GATES:
This is the experiment
of the century.

It's the invention
of the electric motor.

Scale up the magnets
and the wires,

make them really big,
attach heavy weights to them

and they'll be dragged along.

But almost more importantly,

he's inventing
a new kind of physics here.

LITHGOW:
Although he didn't realize it
at the time,

Faraday had also
just demonstrated

an overarching principle.

The chemicals in the battery

had been transformed
into electricity in the wire,

which had combined with
the magnet to produce motion.

Behind all these various forces
there was a common energy.

BODANIS:
A couple of months earlier,

Davy had been elected president
of the Royal Society,

which was the elite body
of English science.

But then he saw
this great discovery

published in the Quarterly
Journal of Science.

I don't know if he was envious,

but he certainly saw
that this young man

who had been his assistant,
this mere blacksmith's son,

had come up with one
of the greatest discoveries

of the Victorian era.

Davy accuses Faraday
of plagiarizing similar work

from another eminent British
scientist, William Wollaston.

So, Faraday, what
does Wollaston
make of all this?

He's written to me
and assures me

that he's taken
no offense,

and he acknowledges
that what I published

was entirely my own work.

Quite, quite.

Davy is just
being an ass.

But will Davy now retract
his allegation?

Sadly, no.

In fact, he is still
vehemently opposed

to you being elected
a member of the society.

Really. And what do you think?

Faraday, my dear boy,
you have my vote.

And mine.

And I believe you
even have Wollaston's.

Oh... What a mess!

Well, no matter,
no matter--

it's the science
that counts.

So, tell me,

how does this wire
of yours spin
round its magnet?

What mysterious
forces are at play?

There seems to be
an electromagnetic interaction.

In my mind, I see
a swirling array

of lines of force spinning

out of
the electrified wire

like a spiraling web.

But invisible
lines of force--

it's all a bit vague,
isn't it?

Faraday, might I have
a word in private?

Certainly.

Listen, Faraday,

let's stop
this nonsense.

I want you
to take down
your ballot paper

from the notice board.

Sir Humphry, I see
no reason to take it down.

My friends have
proposed me.

It is they
who put the paper up.

I will not take it down.

Good day.

LITHGOW:
Faraday was elected
to the Royal Society.

Davy died five years later,

a victim of his
many gaseous inhalations.

In time, Faraday's world
of invisible forces would lead

to a whole new
understanding of energy.

He'd started what Einstein would
call the "great revolution."

It was in the very heart of this
exciting new world of energy

that Einstein grew up.

EINSTEIN:
My father and uncle wanted
to make their fortune

by bringing electric light
to the streets of Germany.

From an early age,
I loved to look at machines,

understand how things work.

He's going to kill himself.

Albert, stay there.

( man scolding in background)

EINSTEIN:
I experienced a miracle when
my father showed me a compass.

I trembled and grew cold.

There had to be something behind
objects that lay deeply hidden.

At high school, they had their
ideas about what I should learn.

I had my own.

Einstein!

EINSTEIN:
I was merely interested
in physics, maths, philosophy

and playing the violin.

Everything else was a bore.

Einstein!

On your feet!

As you obviously
know everything

about geology,
tell me,

how do the rock strata run here?

It's pretty much the same to me

whichever way they run,
Herr Professor.

LITHGOW:
Einstein's teachers tried
to drum into him,

as Faraday had shown,

that energy could be converted
from one form into another.

They also believed
that all forms of energy

had already been discovered.

Einstein was going
to prove them wrong.

He would discover a new,
vast reservoir of energy,

hidden where no other scientist
had ever thought of looking--

deep in the heart of matter.

A hundred years
before Einstein's birth,

King Louis XV was
on the throne of France.

But the ancient, absolute power
of the monarchy over the people

was starting to be challenged.

MAN:
Jacques,

leave the windows.

Forget the rain.

We need air.

LITHGOW:
The French Revolution was
just around the corner.

( thunder rumbles )

WOMAN:
This was the era
of enlightenment,

when intellectuals
believed very firmly

that the way forward
lay in science.

And they felt that
one of the first tasks

that lay ahead of them
was to rationalize

and to classify
every single kind of matter

so they could see how it
all interacted together.

LITHGOW:
Antoine Lavoisier, a wealthy,
aristocratic young man,

decided to take up this task,

to see if there was
some basic connection

between all the stuff
of everyday life:

all the different substances
in the world.

But what worked for Lavoisier
as a scientist--

his meticulous, even obsessive
attention to detail--

was also to be his downfall.

Monsieur Lavoisier, you are,
if my eyes do not deceive me,

consuming only milk
this evening.

First you had a glass of milk,

now you are "eating"
a bowl of milk.

Will you next move on
to a plate of milk?

( chortles )

LAVOISIER:
Your precise observations

commend you as a lady
of scientific curiosity,

Mademoiselle.

Most unusual.

As you seek knowledge,

so I shall dispense it.

For the last five weeks,
I have taken nothing but milk.

MAN:
Good God, man,

I would rather die than fast

on milk
for five weeks!

Are you in the grip
of some horrendous ailment?

On the contrary.

I am investigating the effects

of diet on health.

MAN:
Monsieur, with the
greatest of respect

to a member of the Royal
Academy of Sciences,

your gut must think
your throat has been slit!

( laughs loudly )

( laughter spreads )

Whereas your gut, Count, is
no doubt petitioning the Academy

for a widening
of your throat.

WOMAN ( gasping ):
Marie Anne!

How dare you

insult
the count?

Don't forget what
the count offers...

not just marriage,
but think

of how you will be introduced

to all the salons.

You will be

the toast of Paris.

LAVOISIER:
Would it not be
a shame, Madame,

to burden you

with the duties of matrimony
before you have had a chance

to experience
your curiosity for nature?

Shall we all go through?

It's getting rather hot in here.

Do you really plan
to marry d'Amerval?

There is a plan,
but it is not mine.

Then I must contrive
to save you.

LITHGOW:
Lavoisier wasn't a scientist
by profession.

He was the head of tax
enforcement in Paris.

His great idea was to build
a huge wall around the city

and to tax everything
that came and went.

But his taxes on the simple
things in life--

bread, wine and cheese--

did not endear him
to the average Parisian.

This scrupulous,
fastidious young man

did still allow himself
the occasional act of passion.

In 1771, Lavoisier married
Marie Anne Paulze,

the daughter of his colleague
in the tax office.

Thus he saved her,
as he had promised,

from an arranged marriage
to a count 40 years her elder.

Allow me to show
you something.

FARA:
Lavoisier, I think, found
his job as a tax collector

really rather tedious,

and the times he looked
forward to were the evenings

and the weekends, when
he could indulge his passion

for chemical experimentation.

And he called those times
his jours de bonheur,

his "days of happiness."

Madame.

What will happen if I take a bar
of copper or iron

and leave it outside

in the rain
for months on end,

Madame Lavoisier?

Mmm...

( giggles ):
Monsieur Lavoisier?

The metals--

what will become of them?

Is this a verbal
examination

prior to an examination
proper, sir?

I merely seek the truth.

Then you toy with me,
monsieur,

for you know the truth.

The copper will become covered
in a green verdigris,

and the iron will rust.

I believe the term is

"calcined."

Most impressive,
my charming wife.

But let me press
you further.

Hmm?

When the metal rusts,
does it get heavier

or lighter?

Why, sir, I think
you mean to trap me.

Oh.

Then perhaps this little
butterfly should land

and allow me to take
a closer look.

Every last citizen in France
of sensible age knows

that when a metal rusts,
it wastes away,

it gets lighter
and eventually
disappears.

Ah, but...

Ah, stop.

I have not finished.

Contain yourself, sir.

There is more.

In a recently published pamphlet

by a brilliant
young chemist,

Antoine Lavoisier
demonstrates

that the iron combines
with the air.

It, in fact, becomes heavier.

Most impressive.

I intend...

Now, whatever you
intend, monsieur,

I intend to be
by your side.

I will learn all I can
about your science

and become your
worthy colleague.

Then let me show you
how the iron combines
with the air

to form such
a delicate union.

Tomorrow, monsieur.

Tomorrow.

LITHGOW:
Marie Anne learned chemistry
at her husband's side,

but soon sought other ways
to contribute to his work.

She learned English

so that she could translate
contemporary scientific works.

She took drawing lessons

so that she could record
in forensic detail

the minutiae of their work
together.

She ran their laboratory

and was the public face
of Lavoisier, Inc.

She was central
to the whole research effort.

Monsieur,

that is a terrible thing to say.

( giggles )

You are a cheeky man.

( both laugh )

LAVOISIER:
This way, please, gentlemen.

Messieurs...

it is my great ambition

to demonstrate
that nature is a closed system,

that in any transformation,

no amount of matter, no mass
is ever lost

and none is gained.

Over here, please.

This precise amount of water
is heated to steam.

This steam is brought
into contact

with a red-hot iron barrel
imbedded in the coals.

From this end we cool the steam

but, interestingly, we collect
less water than we started with.

So clearly we lose
a certain amount of water.

However, we also collect a gas,

and the weight
of the iron barrel increases.

Now, when we combine
these two increases--

the new weight
of the iron barrel

and the gas we have collected--

they are exactly equal to
the weight of the lost water.

Ah, but is it

atmospheric air,
Monsieur Lavoisier?

No.

No, because I am measuring it
to the very last grain,

I can see that it is lighter
than the air around us

and, moreover...

it is flammable.

( whoosh and pop )

Voilà.

BODANIS:
Water is made out of hydrogen
and oxygen.

So what he had done is
get the oxygen to stick

to the inside
of a red-hot iron rifle barrel.

He was basically just making
rust, which is oxygen and iron,

but he was making the rust
really quickly.

Now, that left the hydrogen,
what he called combustible air,

and that was just floating
around as a gas.

( whoosh and pop )

No mass had been lost.

It had merely been transformed,

and now he wanted to transform
it all back into water.

This is only the beginning.

In the next few months
I hope to demonstrate

that I can recombine this
combustible air with vital air

and transform them both
back into water.

I will re-create exactly
the same amount of water

that was lost here
in this process.

It is my hope
to complete the cycle--

water into gas into water...

and not a drop lost.

For a long time,
Lavoisier had suspected

that the exact amount of matter,
the mass

involved in any transformation
was always conserved.

But to prove this,

he had to perform thousands
of experiments,

and he had to do
the measurements

with incredible accuracy.

That's where his great wealth

from being a tax collector
came in.

He could afford to commission

the most sensitive instruments
ever built.

He became
obsessed with accuracy.

LITHGOW:
But Lavoisier's exacting methods
were also starting to anger

the growing mob of hungry,
disenchanted Parisians.

( people yelling )

MARIE ANNE:
Antoine.

Antoine.

Oh, wake up, Antoine.

I'm sorry.

What time is it?

It is almost time
to receive Monsieur Marat.

The Academy asked you

to assess his designs.

He claims to have made
a great discovery.

Oh, Antoine, have you forgotten?

Oh, God.

Another charlatan
with an idea to peddle.

God, give me patience.

( Lavoisier coughs )

Ah, Monsieur Marat.

Monsieur.

I have invented
a device

which projects
an image

of the substance of fire
onto a screen.

You see,

when a lantern is
shone through a flame,

we see a shimmering pattern
above the flame.

My device renders

the substance of fire visible.

Have you collected it,
this substance of fire?

Have you trapped it
and measured it?

Well, no, but...

but one can see it.

I'm sorry.

In the absence
of exact measurements,

of precise observations,

without rigorous reasoning,

one can only be engaging
in conjecture,

so this is not science.

I am not given

to conjecture, monsieur.

No, no.

If you will you excuse me.

I am extremely busy today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So that is all?

Then good day, monsieur!

( slams on table )

Let me guess, Marat.

The king's
scientific despot
has decreed

that your invention
does not conform

to the version
of the truth

as laid down
by the Academy.

Lavoisier.

He talks about facts,
he worships the truth.

Listen to me, my friend.

They are all the same,
the Royal Academies--

they insult the liberty
of the mind.

They think they are
the sole arbiters of genius.

They are rotten
to the core--

just like every other
tentacle of the king.

The people-- it is they
who will determine
right and wrong.

Don't worry.

In my next pamphlet
I will expose this
persecutor of yours.

LITHGOW:
For years, the Lavoisiers
burned, chopped, melted

and boiled every conceivable
substance.

They'd shown that
as long as one is scrupulous

about collecting all the vapors,
liquids and powders

created in a transformation,
then mass is not decreased.

Liquids might become gases,
metals may rust,

wood may become ash and smoke,

but matter, the tiny atoms
that make up all substances,

none of it is ever lost.

The crowning glory
of this opus was

their remarkable use
of static electricity

to cause oxygen and hydrogen
to recombine back into water.

What is happening?

( explosions in distance )

LITHGOW:
As the French Revolution
exploded,

the royal family
and whole swaths of aristocrats

lost their heads
on the guillotine.

FARA:
To the French revolutionaries
of 1790,

Lavoisier meant one thing
and one thing only:

he was the despised
tax collector

who'd built that wall
around Paris.

LITHGOW:
Lavoisier's job
as a tax collector

brought him under suspicion.

He was denounced

by a failed scientist
turned radical journalist,

Jean Paul Marat.

( pounding at door )

( pounding at door )

( knocking at door )

Où est Lavoisi?
Je ne sais pas.

Lavoisier!

Lavoisier!

Lavoisier!

( sobbing )

( crowd yelling )

( crowd cheering )

BODANIS:
What Lavoisier did

was absolutely central
to science

and especially
to E equals m c-squared.

Because what he said is,
if you take a bunch of matter,

you can break it apart,
you can recombine it,

you can do anything to it

and the stuff of the matter
won't go away.

If the mob burned Paris
to the ground, utterly razed it,

shattered the bricks
into rubble and dust

and burned the buildings
into ashes and smoke,

it turns out if you put
a huge dome over Paris

and weighed all the smoke
and all the ashes

and all the rubble,

it would add up to the exact
sameeight as the original city

and the air around it before.

Nothing disappears.

LITHGOW:
A century later, all of nature
had been classified

into two great domains.

There was energy-- the forces
that animated objects;

and there was mass--

the physical stuff
that made up those objects.

The whole of 19th-century
science rested

on these two mighty pillars.

The laws that governed one
did not apply to the other.

But young, newly enrolled
physics student Albert Einstein

didn't like laws.

Good grief,
Einstein.

What happened
to you?

It is more
than a little
ironic,

having been
reprimanded
yesterday

by that idiot
Professor Pernet
for poor attendance,

that I should in fact attend
a practical lesson

which was as long
as it was boring,

and utterly pointless,
by the way,

only to be the victim
of an explosion

of my own apparatus.

It was your own fault, then?

Thank you.

And how are you today,
Fraulein Maric?

Extremely well, Herr Einstein.

All the better for seeing

you have escaped the physics
laboratory with your life.

Well, in order not to alarm
you any further, I pledge

to forever continue my studies
here at the Cafe Bahnhof,

reading only the great masters
of theoretical physics

and eschewing the babbling
nonsense of the polytechnicians.

( chuckles )

That's about
all you ever do.

It's getting a little stuffy
in here, Fraulein Maric.

Would you care to take
a walk with me?

There's something
I'd like to discuss with you.

Why, Herr Einstein...

of course.

Perhaps you'd like
me to tell you

what you have missed
in lectures this week?

MAN:
Einstein wasn't exactly
a model student.

He excelled in certain subjects,
especially physics and math,

but he wasn't very diligent
in a lot of his other classes.

He was undoubtedly
very questioning,

which seems to have annoyed
most of his professors

throughout his life.

He would pursue his fascinations

with just incredible
determination.

MAN:
We know from his letters

that Einstein,
even from the age of 16,

was literally obsessed
with the nature of light.

Everyone he could speak to--
his friends, his colleagues,

even his then girlfriend,
Mileva Maric,

who would become his wife--

everyone he badgered with
the question: what is light?

( laughing )

What would I see
if I rode on a beam of light?

What?

A beam of light?

By what method do you propose
to ride on this beam of light?

The method is not important.

Let us just imagine
we two are

( loudly ):
young...

Shh!

( loudly still ):
radical, bohemian experimenters,

hand-in-hand,
on a journey to the outer
reaches of the universe,

and we are riding on
the front of a wave of light.

( laughs )

I really don't know

what you are suggesting,
Herr Einstein.

Do you wish to hold my
hand or ridicule me?

Ridicule you?

No, never.

I merely want you
to help me to understand.

What would we see,
do you think...

Um...

if we were together
and we sped up... and up

until we caught up
to the front of
a beam of light?

LITHGOW:
It was Einstein's relentless
pursuit of light

which would bring about
a revolution in science.

With light he would reinvent
the universe

and find a hidden pathway

that would unite
energy and mass.

Light moves incredibly fast,
670 million miles per hour.

That's why scientists use
the term "c".

It stands for celeritas--
Latin for "swiftness."

Long before the 19th century,

scientists had computed
the speed of light,

but no one knew
what light actually was.

Back in England, a man we've
already met was willing to make

an educated guess.

After Sir Humphry Davy's death,

Michael Faraday became
Professor Faraday,

one of the most important
experimenters in the world.

The scientific establishment
still found it hard to accept

that electricity and magnetism
were just two aspects

of the same phenomenon,

which Faraday called
"electromagnetism."

But now he has

an even more outrageous proposal
for his audience.

Invisible lines
that can emanate

from electricity in a wire,

from a magnet
or... even from the sun.

( crowd laughs )

For it is my contention

that light itself is just one
form of these vibrating lines

of electromagnetism.

( laughter )

LITHGOW:
For 15 years, Faraday struggled
to convince the skeptics

that light was
an electromagnetic wave,

but he lacked the advanced
mathematics to back up his idea.

Eventually, someone came
to his rescue.

Professor James Clerk Maxwell
believed

in Faraday's far-sighted vision,

and he had the mathematical
skill to prove it.

Maxwell and the aging Faraday
became close friends.

James.

James, forgive me.

( gasps )

A word of advice:
don't get old.

( chuckles )

Michael, how are you?

Oh, I'm fine.

Memory isn't too good,
but...

Well, I thought
you might like to see

what I've just published.

Oh, yes, yes.

Splendid.

So your results show that when
electricity flows along a wire,

what it actually does is create
a little bit of magnetism.

Now, as that magnetic
charge moves,

it creates a little piece
of electricity.

Electricity.

Electricity and magnetism
are interwoven,

like a... a never-ending braid.

So it is always pulsing forward.

That's wonderful.

Wonderful.

Michael.

Michael, there's
something very crucial
in maths.

This electricity
producing magnetism

and magnetism
producing electricity--

it can only ever happen
at a very particular speed.

The equations are
very clear about it.

They come up
with just one number:

670 million miles per hour.

I'm not sure I...?

That's the speed of light.

That is the speed of light!

Well, that means you
were right all along.

Light is
an electromagnetic wave.

LITHGOW:
Maxwell had proven Faraday
right.

Electricity and magnetism
are just two aspects

of a deeper unity, a force
now called electromagnetism,

which travels
at 670 million miles per hour.

In its visible form, it is
nothing other than light itself.

And nothing fascinated the young
Einstein more than light.

( playing light romantic piece)

( sighs )

We have lectures
in half an hour.

Oh, let me think.

Professor Weber and his
life-draining monologue

or you... ( kisses )

Mozart and James Clerk Maxwell?

We can't.

We'll get a warning.

Our project
is too precious

to waste time listening
to those dullards.

Come with me,

we'll read Maxwell

and think about
the electromagnetic theory
of light!

( giggling )

Oh, why, my dear
little Johnnie,

how you enchant a lady.

MARIC:
She's very pretty.

Yes, but can she
soar and dance like
our dark souls do?

( sighs )

BODANIS:
Maxwell's equations contained
an incredible prediction.

They said you could never
catch up to a beam of light.

Even if you were traveling
at 670 million miles an hour,

you would still see light
squiggle away from you

at 670 million miles an hour.

Do you see how she stares
at that wave?

Yes.

You see how for her
it is static?

Yes.

She and the wave are traveling
at the same speed.

We see the wave moving
through the water.

But relative to her,
it just sits there.

So is light like that?

Common sense would say that if
you caught up to a light beam,

there would be a wave of light
just sitting there.

Maybe it would be shimmering,

a bit of electricity
and a bit of magnetism.

So if she was traveling
alongside the light wave,

it wouldn't be moving.

It would be static.

But Maxwell says
you can't have static light.

Maybe Maxwell is wrong.

Maybe if you catch up to light,

it is static, Albert,
like a wave next to a boat.

Imagine if I were sitting still
and holding a mirror to my face.

The light travels from my face
to the mirror and I see my face.

Yes.

However, if I and the mirror

were traveling
at the speed of light?

You're going at the same speed
as the light leaving your face?

Exactly.

The light never reaches
the mirror?

So would I be invisible?

Hmm.

That doesn't make sense.

LITHGOW:
Young Einstein was starting
to realize

that light was unlike
any other kind of wave.

Einstein was about to enter
a surreal universe

where energy, mass and
the speed of light intermingled

in a way no one
had ever suspected.

But there was one last
mathematical ingredient

that Einstein would need:

the everyday process
of squaring.

Long before
the French Revolution,

scientists were not sure how
to quantify motion.

Challenge.

LITHGOW:
Equations that explained

how objects moved and collided
were in their infancy.

( growls )

( kisses and giggles )

LITHGOW:
A crucial contribution
to this subject

would come
from an unusual source.

Meet the aristocratic
16-year-old daughter

of one of King Louis XIV's
courtiers, Émilie du Châtelet.

( both grunting )

( groaning )
( giggling )

Quickly, Father
is coming!

LITHGOW:
Émilie du Châtelet would have
a huge effect on physics

in her tragically short
lifetime.

Unheard of for a woman
of her time,

she would publish
many scientific works,

including a translation
of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia,

the greatest treatise on motion
ever written.

Du Châtelet's translation
is still

the standard text in France
today.

Musa, mihi
causas memora...

Muse, my memory causes...

O Muse! The causes
and the crimes relate

What goddess was provoked,
and whence her hate

For what offence
the Queen of Heaven began

To persecute so brave,
so just a man!

Do not be cross
with your sister,

because she persecutes
many a just man!

Only the other night,

Émilie silenced
the duc du Luynes

when she divided a ridiculously
long number in her head

in a matter of seconds.

You should have seen the
incredulity on their faces

when they realized Émilie
was correct.

Was it my sister's
astounding intelligence

or her boundless beauty

that made their mouths gape,
I wonder?

Ah well, yes, you have
a point, monsieur.

Messieurs, I thank you
for your kindness.

I fear, however,
that my wit is only
a curiosity to others.

If only my mind were
permitted opportunity.

My dearest Émilie.

You are blessed
with intellect and courage.

Use them both and the world
will fall at your feet.

No...

WOMAN:
In one sense,

she is a woman utterly out of
her true time and place.

She's a philosopher,
a scientist,

a mathematician,
a linguist.

She demands a freedom

that women didn't begin to enjoy
until over 150 years later--

a freedom to study science,

to write about it,
and to be published.

LITHGOW:
Du Châtelet married a general
in the French army at age 19

and had three children.

She ran a busy household,

all the while pursuing
her passion for science.

She was 23 when she discovered
advanced mathematics.

She enthusiastically
took lessons

from one of the greatest
mathematicians of the day,

Pierre de Maupertuis.

He was an expert on Newton,

and she was his eager
young student;

it seems they had
a brief affair.

But then he set off
on a polar expedition.

Du Châtelet then fell
passionately in love

with Voltaire,
France's greatest poet.

A fierce critic of the king
and the Catholic Church,

Voltaire had been in prison
twice

and exiled to England,

where he became enthralled
by the ideas of Newton.

Back in France,

it wasn't long before he again
insulted the king.

Du Châtelet hid him
in her country home.

The poor little creature
is devoted to him.

LITHGOW:
Isolated far from Paris,
du Châtelet and Voltaire

turned her chateau into a
palace of learning and culture,

complete with
its own tiny theater,

and all with the apparent
blessing of her husband.

FARA:
There's a great deal of myth
surrounding du Châtelet

and her love life

and most of it is
very exaggerated.

But her husband did accept
Voltaire into his household,

and he often went to Paris
on behalf of Voltaire;

he went to his publisher
to plead Voltaire's case

to keep Voltaire out of jail.

And it is also true
that Émilie du Châtelet

did have several affairs
of a fleeting nature.

( audience applauding )

Bravo! Bravo!

ZINSSER:
She created an institution
to rival that

of France's Royal
Academies of Sciences.

Many of the great
philosophers, poets

and scientists of the day
visited.

Ah, monsieur...
you are young.

I hope that soon
you will judge me

for my own merits,
or lack of them,

but do not look upon me

as an appendage
to this great general

or that renowned scholar.

I am in my own right

a whole person,

responsible
to myself alone

for all that I am,

all that I say...

( blows )

all that I do.

LITHGOW:
Du Châtelet learned from
the brilliant men around her,

but she quickly developed
ideas of her own.

Much to the horror
of her mentors,

she even dared to suspect
that there was a flaw

in the great
Sir Isaac Newton's thinking.

Newton stated that
the energy of an object,

the force with which it
collided with another object,

could very simply be
accounted for

by its mass
times its velocity.

In correspondence
with scientists in Germany,

du Châtelet learned
of another view,

that of Gottfried Leibniz.

He proposed that moving objects
had a kind of inner spirit.

He called it Vis Viva,
Latin for "livinforce."

Many discounted his ideas,
but Leibniz was convinced

that the energy of an object
was made up

of its mass
times its velocity squared.

Taking the square of something
is an ancient procedure.

If you say a garden is
four square,

you mean that it might be
built up

by four slabs along one edge
and four along the other.

So the total number of
paving slabs is

four times four: 16.

If the garden is eight square--
eight by eight--

well, eight squared is 64.

It'll have 64 slabs in it.

This huge multiplication,
this building up by squares,

is something you find in nature
all the time.

Émilie?

Émilie, you are
being absurd!

Why ascribe
to an object

a vague and
immeasurable force
like Vis Viva?

It is a return
to the old ways!

It is the occult!

When movement commences,

you say it is true
that a force is produced

which did not exist until now.

Think of our bodies--
to have free will

we must be free
to initiate motion.

So all Leibniz is asking is,

where does all
this force come from?

In your case, my dear,

the force, I am sure,
is primeval.

Oh! You're infuriating!

You hide behind wit and sarcasm.

You only think
you understand Newton.

You are incapable
of understanding
Leibniz.

You are a provocateur.

Everything you do is
about something else

and makes trouble
for you.

Criticize this,
denounce that.

Are you capable of discovering
something of your own?

I discovered you!

LITHGOW:
Despite the overwhelming support
for Newton,

du Châtelet did not waver
in her belief.

Eventually, she came across
an experiment

performed by a Dutch scientist,
Willem 'sGravesande,

that would prove her point.

S'Gravesande in Leiden
has been dropping lead balls

into a pan of clay.

( sarcastically ):
Dropping lead balls into clay!

How very
imaginative.

DU CHATELET:
Using Newton's formulas,
Monsieur Voltaire,

he then drops a second ball
from a higher height,

calculated to exactly
double the speed

of the first ball on impact.

So, messieurs, care
for a little wager?

Newton tells us that by doubling
the speed of the ball,

we will double the distance
it travels

into the clay.

Leibniz asks us
to square that speed.

If he is correct,
the ball will travel not two,

but four times as far.

So who is correct?

Messieurs,

I feel Mr. Newton's
reputation dwindling

ever so
slightly.

Oh,
Maupertuis!

Do not succumb to her!

There is no
earthly reason

to ascribe
hidden forces

to this Dutchman's
lead balls!

( men laughing )

Well...

the ball travels
fo times further.

Turns out Leibniz is
the one who is right--

it's the best way to express
the energy of a moving object.

If you drive a car
at 20 miles an hour,

it takes a certain distance to
stop if you slam on the brakes.

If you're going three times
as fast--

you're going 60 miles an hour--

it won't take you three times
as long to stop,

it'll take you
nine times as long to stop.

Oh. Well... it does seem

worth consideration.

Perhaps we might look over
his calculations?

I have already checked
his figures.

I am sure Leibniz is correct
on this point.

I intend
to include

a section on this matter
in my book.

MAUPERTUIS:
Really?

Do be careful, madame.

Do you think the Academy
is ready for such an opinion?

Quite, quite.

We really should be
careful.

"We"?

I see no reason to delay.

There is no right time
for the truth.

ZINSSER:
Émilie du Châtelet published

her Institutions of Physics
in 1740,

and it provoked
great controversy.

Voltaire wrote

that "She was a great man whose
only fault was being a woman."

In her day,
that was a great compliment.

I am with child.

You are sure?

Undoubtedly.

Two to three
months.

I'm afraid that...

You are afraid?

You should have...

Well, this child is
obviously not mine.

Nor is it your husband's.

( sighs )

Oh, Émilie.

Émilie.

Émilie du Châtelet knew
that in the 18th century

for a woman to become pregnant
at the age of 43

was really very dangerous,

and all the while
she was pregnant

she had terrible premonitions
about what was going to happen.

LITHGOW:
All her life, du Châtelet
had tried to rise above

the limitations
placed on her gender.

In the end, it was an affair
with a young soldier

that led to her demise.

Six days after giving birth
to her fourth child,

she suffered an embolism
and died.

Émilie du Châtelet's
conviction

that the energy of an object

is a function
of the square of its speed

sparked a fierce debate.

After her death,

it took a hundred years
for the idea to be accepted--

just in time for Einstein
to use this brilliant insight

to finally bring energy
and mass together with light.

Einstein pursued light right
through university and beyond.

Unfortunately, he'd upset
so many professors

that no one would write him
a reference.

He accepted a low-paying job
in the Swiss patent office.

He and Mileva married
and had a child.

The young family struggled.

But none of it seems
to bother Albert.

Einstein?

I see you are busy,

as usual.

Look, Einstein...

Albert.

You have shown
some quite good
achievements.

But, listen...

About your promotion.

I really think it would be
better to wait

until you have
become more fully familiar

with mechanical
engineering.

I'm sorry.

Perhaps
next time, hmm?

MILEVA:
But I wanted to hire a maid

so I can get back
and finish my degree.

Now I will never pass
my dissertation.

Oh, come, come,
my pretty little duck.

All will be fine, you'll see.

But how will it be fine,
Albert?!

Do I have to just wait
another year

until you are promoted?

( baby crying )

Come on.

Come on, my little one.

Oh, there we are.

( baby continues crying )

All will be fine.

All will be fine, you'll see.

There really is a very charming,

but kind of a self-centered
streak to Einstein.

He focuses only on
his particular obsessions.

If the rest of the world fits in
around him, that's fine,

if they can't,
it doesn't bother him.

( no voice )

Albert, Albert, Albert.

A pretty neck
and your head spins.

Besso, we must behold and
comprehend the mysterious.

Well, that kind of mysterious is
going to get you into trouble.

I'll tell you what is
truly mysterious:

the secret of a long
and happy marriage.

The mathematics are fine,
if a little unconventional,

but this only works
for big systems.

It'll fall down when
you apply it to small systems.

I disagree.

BESSO:
Oh, no.

Here we go--

another grand theory
by Herr Albert Einstein,

Patent Clerk,

Third Class.

What would happen
if one applied those formulae

to electromagnetic radiation?

Albert,

you can't just take one bit
of physics and apply it

without proper regard
to a completely different area.

Why not?

Albert.

I know you like
the grand linkages,

the big theories,

but wouldn't things
be better all round

if you just got going
in some small area?

Got a university post.

Get a decent wage,
for God's sake.

At least Mileva
could study again.

Then she'd be happy,
and you'd be happy.

Ah, the vulgar struggle
for survival: food and sex.

Spoken like
a true bourgeois.

Besso, I want to know
how God created this world.

I am not interested
in this or that phenomenon,

in the spectrum of this
or that element.

I want to know His thoughts.

The rest... they're details.

Yes, but you can't
feed your children

on His thoughts, Bertie.

KAISER:
So it turns out,
Einstein was going for a walk

with his very close friend,
Michele Besso.

They'd studied physics together

and talked about physics and
philosophy for years and years.

They were very close.

They had cornered
the question of light

from every possible angle.

See these clocks are over here?

LITHGOW:
As Einstein and Besso
were ruminating

on how much time it would take
light to reach them

from clocks at different
distances,

Einstein had a monumental
insight.

( church bell tolling )

( exhales deeply )

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have completely solved
the problem.

Albert!

BODANIS:
What Einstein did was completely
turn the problem on its head.

Other scientists
had found it impossible

to accept Maxwell's idea--

that light would always move
away from you

at 670 million miles an hour,

even if you, too, were traveling
really fast.

But Einstein just accepted that
as a fact:

light's speed
never ever changes.

Then what he did was bend

everything we know
about the universe

to fit light's fixed speed.

What he discovered
was that to do that

you have to slow down time.

His extraordinary insight
is that time...

as you approach
the speed of light,

time itself will slow down.

It's a monumental shift
in how we see the world.

The instant, the very instant

when Einstein had
this brilliant insight

that time could slow down,

well, the floodgates
began to open.

( clocks ticking )

You see,
before then people had assumed

that time was like a wristwatch
on God's hand,

that it beat at a steady rate
throughout the universe,

no matter were you were.

( clock's ticking slowing )

Einstein said no--

that the "tick, tick, tick"
of this wristwatch

was actually
the "click, click, click"

of electricity turning
into magnetism

turning into electricity.

In other words,
the steadyace of light itself.

BODANIS:
1905 was a miraculous year
for Einstein and for physics.

He had an unbelievable
outpouring of creativity.

It starts with his publication
of a paper

on how to work out
the true size of atoms.

Two months later

is the publication of his paper
on the nature of light--

that's what will earn him
the Nobel Prize.

The third paper,
only a month later,

is on how molecules move
when heated,

and that finally ends the debate
on whether atoms really exist.

The fourth paper is published

at the end
of this half-year period.

In it Einstein sets out

his theory of light,
time and space.

It was the Theory
of Special Relativity.

That changed the way
we see the world.

LITHGOW:
In Einstein's new world,

the one true constant was not
time or even space, but light.

( steam whistle blowing,
train chugging )

But Einstein's miracle year
was not over.

( steam hissing, fire roaring)

In one last great 1905 paper,

he would propose
an even deeper unity.

( steam whistle blowing )

As he computed

all the implications
of his new theory,

he noticed
another strange connection,

this one between energy,
mass and light.

( train whistle blowing )

Einstein realizes
that the speed of light

is kind of like
a cosmic speed limit.

Nothing can go faster.

So imagine we have a train
charging along,

and let's say it's getting
up to the speed of light

and we're stuffing
more and more energy in,

trying to get it to go
faster and faster.

But it's still bumping up
against the speed of light.

So all this energy,
where does it go?

It has to go somewhere.

Amazingly, it goes
into the object's mass.

From our point of view,
the train actually gets heavier;

the energy becomes mass.

It's an incredible idea.

Even Einstein is amazed by it.

I think I have
found a connection

between energy and mass.

If I am right, then energy
and mass are not absolute.

They are not distinct--

they can be converted
into one another.

Energy can become mass,
and mass can become energy.

And not just energy
equaling mass.

Energy equals mass times the
square of the speed of light.

( cackles; laughs softly )

Would you like me to check
your mathematics?

LITHGOW:
Einstein sent his fifth great
1905 paper for publication.

In three pages he simply stated
that energy and mass

were connected by the square
of the speed of light--

E equals m c-squared.

With four familiar notes
in the scale of nature,

this patent ficer had composed
a totally fresh melody--

the culmination of his ten-year
journey into light.

Here we are
for thousands of years

thinking that over here is
a world of objects, of matter,

and over there is
an entirely separate world

of movement,
of forces, of energy.

And Einstein says,
"No, they are not separate."

Energy can become mass,

and crucially,
mass can also become energy.

There is a deep unity between
energy, matter and light.

KAKU:
E equals m c-squared.

That equation shows that every
piece of matter in our universe

has stored within it
a fantastic amount of energy.

The speed of light, for example,

is about 300 million meters
per second.

You multiply that by itself
and you get 90 quadrillion.

So in other words,
what is matter?

In some sense, matter is nothing
but the condensation

of vast amounts of energy.

So in other words,
if you could unlock...

somehow unlock all the energy
stored within my pen,

that would erupt with a force
comparable to an atomic bomb.

After Einstein's fifth
great 1905 paper,

physicists no longer spoke
of mass or energy--

they are now
the same thing to us.

( steam hissing )

LITHGOW:
Probably the most miraculous
year in science ends in silence.

The articles are published
to resounding. nothing.

EINSTEIN ( voice echoing ):
I think the Gods

are laughing at me.

LITHGOW:
Then slowly it starts.

A letter here, a letter there.

For four years Einstein swered
each inquiry dutifully,

trying to explain
his difficult, complex ideas

to a confused physics community.

GATES:
I love the idea that life
just went on as normal.

Here are these universe-changing
papers circling around,

and the world is... struggling
to come to terms with them.

KAKU:
Einstein had a fan club

of just one.

Luckily it happened to be the
most important living physicist.

SUPERVISOR:
Einstein.

Einstein.

Max Planck has sent
someone to see you.

Max Planck?

Yes.

He has sent
his assistant.

He's here to see you.

LITHGOW:
Max Planck encourages the
world's most eminent physicists

to take Einstein seriously.

After four years of waiting,

he is appointed professor of
physics at Zurich University.

From there his career
is meteoric.

He is made
professor of physics in Berlin,

achieves world renown
and becomes a household name.

He is the undisputed father
of modern physics.

But Einstein's success was
the downfall of his marriage.

In 1919 he divorced Mileva
and married his cousin.

His fame led to
numerous affairs.

E equals m c-squared became
the Holy Grail of science.

It held out the promise
of vast reserves of energy

locked deep inside the atom.

Einstein suspected

that it would take a hundred
years of research to unlock it.

But he hadn't banked on
the Second World War

and the genius of a Jewish woman
in Hitler's Germany.

28-year-old Austrian
Lise Meitner was painfully shy.

Despite her anxiety,

the young doctor of physics
arrived in Berlin

determined to pursue a career

in the exciting new field
of radioactivity.

Unfortunately, in 1907,

German universities did not
employ female graduates.

Luckily,
one man came to her aid.

Fraulein Meitner?

Yes?

Otto Hahn. I'm a researcher
in the Chemistry Institute.

Professor Planck
suggested I...

Herr Hahn, I have read
your papers on thorium
and on mesothorium,

and Dr. Planck
suggested that I...

Yes, he suggested
that I speak with you.

I need someone
to collaborate...

I think I could really help
with the physical analysis.

And the mathematics?

Yes, yes--
and the mathematics.

Studying radioactive atoms

has become
so much a collaboration

between emistry
and physics these days.

Yes, yes.

I'll ask Fischer
for a laboratory, then.

Excellent.

I'll speak to you soon.

LITHGOW:
Lise Meitner had just taken
the first step on a journey

that would irrevocably change
world history.

For her it would be a road
marked with success and renown,

but also with terror
and betrayal.

BODANIS:
At this time, not a lot
was known about the atom.

At first, people thought

it was like
a miniature solar system;

there's a solid nucleus
of the center

and electrons would spin
around it,

sort of like planets
around our sun.

A little later, some researchers
proposed

that the nucleus itself
wasn't a solid chunk

but was made up
of separate particles,

of protons and neutrons.

But then-- in what are called
radioactive metals,

things like radium and uranium--

the nucleus itself
seemed to be unstable,

leaking out energy
and particles.

Perhaps this was an example
of E equals m c-squared--

the mass of a nucleus
turning into energy.

LITHGOW:
Meitner and Hahn's collaboration

to unlock the secrets
of the atom started out

on an extremely unequal footing.

He was given a laboratory.

She was forced to work
in a wood shop.

I see you haven't set
your hair on fire.

Herr Hahn?

The boss-- he thinks
that if he lets women

into the Chemistry Institute

they'll set
their hair on fire.

Oh... so his beard
must be fireproof.

( footsteps approaching )

Good day, Herr Hahn.

Good day.

You see?

I am nonexistent

to this place.

At least physicists recognize me
for my abilities.

Yes, where would
we chemists be

without the steadying hand
of the physicist?

WOMAN:
It took years, but Lise lost
her shyness eventually.

In 1912, she and Hahn moved

to the brand-new Kaiser Wilhelm
Institute for Chemistry,

where their status
was really that of equals.

Lise became the first woman
in Germany ever

to have the title of professor.

Lise... I have news.

Oh?

You remember the art student

I told you of?

Yes, Edith.

Yes, well, I have, um...

asked her to marry me,
and she has accepted.

Oh...

Oh, Dr. Hahn,
congratulations.

Yes, well...

I wanted you to be
the first to know.

I'm very pleased for you.

Very pleased.

SIME:
Lise Meitner
was warm-hearted by nature.

She had many friends

and she may have wanted to have
a closer relationship with Otto.

But it really does seem that
physics was Lise's first love--

maybe even her passion.

LITHGOW:
The 1920s and '30s were the
golden age of nuclear research.

The largest known nucleus
at the time

was that of the uranium atom,

containing
238 protons and neutrons.

Meitner and Hahn
were leading the race

to see if even bigger nuclei
could be created

by adding more neutrons.

So... the atom, pretty familiar:

Nucleus in the center,
electrons... orbiting around.

The nucleus is ourocus.

The nucleus, made up
of protons... and neutrons.

Now, the largest nucleus
that we know

is that of the uranium atom.

Its nucleus is
a tightly packed structure

of 238 protons and neutrons.

The thrust of our work
is to try to fire neutrons

into this huge structure,

and if we can get a neutron
to stick in here,

that will be a breakthrough.

LITHGOW:
Meitner may have been on
the brink of a major discovery,

but Germany in the 1930s
was a dangerous place to be,

even for a world-class
scientist.

The Jewess endangers
our institute.

When the Nazis came to power,
one of the first things they did

was to drive out Jewish
academics from the universities.

Einstein was very prominent

and for that reason
he was one of the first to go.

He was hounded out of Germany
in 1933.

Lise was not dismissed
at that time.

She was able to stay
because she was Austrian.

But in March 1938,
Austria was annexed into Germany

and at that point her situation
became untenable.

( inaudible )

What is it?

Frightening news.

What's happened?

Kurt Hess is going around saying
that I should be got rid of.

I, um... I actually knew.

I heard today.

I was going to speak

to the treasurer
of the institute

before I told you.

We're speaking tomorrow.

Come on,
let's get you home.

It's late.

We'll finish up.

LITHGOW:
The pressure on Meitner
was unbearable.

Hahn, who was known
for his anti-Nazi views,

did his best to protect her,
at least initially.

I need to talk to you
about Lise.

Not now,
I'm too busy.

We have to protect her.

( sighs )

How?

What can we do?

The situation
is the way it is.

Who knows what
will happen next?

She can't stay;
it's just not tenable.

But she hasn't got a visa
or even a valid passport.

And she may soon be
forbidden to leave Germany.

We can't harbor a Jew.

If she stays, the regime
will shut us all down!

Lise...

Horlein demands
that you leave.

You can't
throw her out.

Horlein says
you should not come

into the institute
anymore.

Well, I have to write up

the thorium irradiation
tomorrow,

so I have to come in.

You've given up.

LITHGOW:
When it became clear that
Meitner would be dismissed

and probably arrested,

physicists all around Europe
wrote letters

inviting her to conferences,

giving her an excuse
to leave Germany.

The Nazis refused to let her go.

In July of 1938,

a Dutch colleague
traveled to Berlin

and illegally took Lise
back with him

on a train to Holland.

The trip was so frightening

that at one point
she begged to go back.

Despite the great danger,
she got through.

SIME:
She had lost everything--
her home, her position,

her books,
her salary, her pension,

even her native language.

She had been cut off
from her work just at the time

when she was leading the field

and was on the brink of
a major scientific discovery.

LITHGOW:
No matter what
privations she suffered,

Lise was still thinking
of physics.

Amazingly, she and Hahn were
able to collaborate by letter.

MEITNER ( composing ):
I hope, my dear Otto,
that after 30 years

of work together and friendship
in the institute,

that at least
the possibility remains

that you tell me
as much as you can

about what
is happening back there.

SIME:
Lise was invited by
an old student friend

to spend Christmas
on the west coast of Sweden.

Her nephew, Otto Robert Frisch,
who was also a physicist,

came to join her there.

Aunt?

Aunt?

Aunt?

Lise, how are you,
my dear?

Merry Christmas.

Aunt?

Hmm, I need your help.

Come on, let's go out.

But I was
hoping you'd help me.

LITHGOW:
Back in Berlin, Hahn
was getting strange results.

He found no evidence
to suggest

that bombarding the uranium
nucleus with neutrons

had caused it
to increase in size.

In fact, his experiments
seemed to be contaminated

with radium, a smaller atom.

He desperately needed
Meitner's expert analysis.

From afar,
she was starting to suspect

that something very different
was happening

in their experiment.

Hahn and Strassman are getting
some strange results

with the uranium work.

Really?

A couple of months ago,
Hahn told me

that they were finding radium
amongst the uranium products.

We are looking for
a much bigger element,

and... here we're finding
something much smaller.

I urged Hahn to check again--
it couldn't be radium.

And now he writes to me

and tells me that
it's not radium,
it's barium.

But that's even smaller.

Exactly.

Hahn is sure
that it's another error,

but I don't know anymore.

It is at least possible that
barium is being produced.

So Hahn still needs you
to interpret the data.

It is my work, too, you know.

Exactly.

Well, I can't be there, can I?

Come on, let's walk.

Surely he's made
a mistake, hasn't he?

He hasn't done
what you told him to.

My darling Robert,

he may not be
a brilliant theorist,

but he's
too good a chemist
to get this wrong.

SIME:
If you imagine a drop of water--
a big drop--

it's unstable, on the verge
of breaking apart.

It turns out
that a big nucleus like uranium

is just like that.

Now for four years,
Meitner and Hahn

and all other physicists
had thought

that if you pump more neutrons
into this nucleus,

it'll just get
bigger and heavier.

But suddenly,
Meitner and Frisch--

out in the midday snow--
realized

this nucleus
might just get so big

that it would split in two.

If the nucleus is so big that
it has trouble staying together,

then couldn't just a little,
tiny jog from a neutron...

Yes, but if the nucleus
did split,

the two halves would fly apart
with a huge amount of energy.

Where's that energy going
to come from?

How much energy?

Well, we worked out that
the mutual repulsion
between two nuclei

would generate
about 200 million
electron volts.

But something
has to supply that energy.

Wait, let me do
a packing fraction calculation.

The two nuclei

are lighter than the original
nucleus of the uranium

by about one-fifth
of a proton in mass.

What?

So some mass has been lost.

Einstein's
E equals m c-squared.

If we multiply the lost mass
by the speed of light squared

we get...

( scribbling )

200 million electron volts.

He's split the atom.

No, no, no...

you've split the atom.

SIME:
It w an amazing discovery.

Of course, in the laboratory

we're talking about
tiny amounts of uranium

and correspondingly
tiny amounts of energy.

But the point is that
the amount of energy released

was relatively large

and that came from
the mass of the uranium itself.

The energy released
was entirely consistent

with Einstein's equation
E equals m c-squared.

LITHGOW:
Meitner and Frisch
published the discovery

of what they called
"nuclear fission"

to great acclaim.

But betrayal awaited them.

Otto Hahn was under pressure
from the Nazi regime

to write his Jewish colleague
out of the story.

He alone was awarded the 1944
Nobel Prize for the discovery.

In his speech,
he barely mentioned

the leading role of Meitner.

Bizarrely, even after the war,

Hahn maintained it
was he and not Meitner

who had discovered
nuclear fission.

MEITNER ( composing ):
Now, I want to write
something personal,

which disturbs me
and which I ask you to read

with our more than
40-year friendship in mind

and with the desire
to understand me.

I am now referred to
as "Hahn's long-time co-worker."

How would you feel
if you were only characterized

as the long-time
co-worker of me?

After the last 15 years--

which I wouldn't wish
on any good friend--

shall my scientific past
also be taken from me?

Is that fair?

And why is it happening?

BODANIS:
Lise Meitner had been working
on this for 30 years.

She'd only broken apart
a handful of atoms,

but that was enough.

Once she had broken even one,
the genie was out of the bottle.

What Meitner had started...
after that,

physicists around the world

began to realize they could
take it a lot further.

LITHGOW:
In 1942, an intense effort
to build an atom bomb was begun.

All over America,
secret installations sprang up

under the code name
"the Manhattan Project."

Meitner was asked to join
the Manhattan Project,

and she refused.

She refused to have anything
to do with the atomic bomb.

But Robert Frisch was different.

He was an important member
of the team,

because he was convinced
of the need

to beat the Nazis
in a nuclear arms race.

LITHGOW:
A nuclear bomb was
never used on Germany,

but the atomic bombs dropped
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

demonstrated the terrible
destructive power

of E equals m c-squared.

Vast amounts of energy,

in the form
of electromagnetic radiation,

were released from a few pounds
of uranium and plutonium.

While the pure inquisitiveness

of the world's
most gifted scientists

ironically had brought humanity
a weapon of mass destruction,

the equation's life
has a parallel story

of creation and beauty.

Today, young physicists
carry on Einstein's quest.

Ever since its birth,

E equals m c-squared
has been used

to delve into the depths
of time,

to answer the biggest question
of all--

where did we come from?

At particle accelerators,

researchers propel
atomic particles

to the speed of light
and smash them together,

creating conditions
like those in the Big Bang.

KAISER:
E equals m c-squared
actually tells us

how the Big Bang itself
happened.

In the first moments
of creation,

the universe was
this immensely dense,

immensely concentrated eruption
of energy.

As it rushed apart and expanded,
huge amounts of energy, or "E,"

were converted
into mass, or "m."

Pure energy became matter--

it became the particles
and atoms

and it eventually formed
the first stars.

BODANIS:
Our sun is a huge furnace
floating in space

and it's powered
by E equals m c-squared.

Now it turns out, every second,

four million tons of solid mass
of the sun disappears.

It comes out as energy.

Not just a little bit of energy.

It's enough to light up
our entire solar system,

make the solar system
glow with heat and light.

KAKU:
And not only
do stars emit energy,

in accordance
with E equals m c-squared.

The whole process
actually creates life itself.

Eventually, a massive star dies,

the debris floats around,
clusters together,

gets pulled into the orbits
of another star

and becomes a planet.

We humans and the earth we
stand on are made of stardust.

We are a direct product
of E equals m c-squared.

LITHGOW:
Building on the work
of scientists through the ages,

new generations are searching
for answs.

Using bold new tools that reach
almost to the speed of light,

they can now ask questions

that their predecessors
could never have even imagined.

As Einstein himself knew,

the journey of discovery
is sometimes painful,

sometimes joyful.

It is as old
as human curiosity itself

and never, ever ends.

( train whistle blowing )

We gave top physicists
two short minutes

to explain Einstein's
big idea.

NOVA's Web site,
you can hear how they did it,

tell us what you think
about this program,

and much more.

Find it on pbs.org.

In a labyrinth of Roman ruins,
a chamber of mass death.

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