Einstein's Big Idea
11/10/2005
2h

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.
Cast


Aidan McArdle
Einstein


Anton Lesser
Voltaire
Andrew Callaway
Maupertuis


Julian Rhind-Tutt
Antoine Lavoisier


Shirley Henderson
Mileva Maric


Ty Glaser
Marie Anne Lavoisier
Andy Crabbe
Habicht


Samuel West
Humphry Davy
Daniel D'Alessandro
Algarotti
Brendan Fleming
Hermann Einstein
Gregory Fox-Murphy
Brande
Philip Herbert
Count de Amerval
Chris Jenkinson
Dr. Haller


Wolf Kahler
Horlein


George Layton
Emilie’s Father


Alex Macqueen
Chater
Richard Mulholland
Emilie’s Tutor
Stephen Noonan
Marat


Christopher Eccleston
Narrator (voice)


John Lithgow
Narrator (voice) U.S. edition


Steven Robertson
Michael Faraday


Christian Rubeck
Otto Hahn


Emily Woof
Lise Meitner
Ian Duncan
Charles de Breteuil
James Tovell
Manson
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