Einstein's Big Idea (2005)
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.
Director: Gary Johnstone
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Aidan McArdle as Einstein |
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Anton Lesser as Voltaire |
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Andrew Callaway as Maupertuis |
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Julian Rhind-Tutt as Antoine Lavoisier |
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Shirley Henderson as Mileva Maric |
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Ty Glaser as Marie Anne Lavoisier |
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Andy Crabbe as Habicht |
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Samuel West as Humphry Davy |
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Daniel D'Alessandro as Algarotti |
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Brendan Fleming as Hermann Einstein |
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Gregory Fox-Murphy as Brande |
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Philip Herbert as Count de Amerval |
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Chris Jenkinson as Dr. Haller |
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Wolf Kahler as Horlein |
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George Layton as Emilie’s Father |
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Alex Macqueen as Chater |
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Richard Mulholland as Emilie’s Tutor |
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Stephen Noonan as Marat |
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Christopher Eccleston as Narrator (voice) |
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John Lithgow as Narrator (voice) U.S. edition |
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Steven Robertson as Michael Faraday |
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Christian Rubeck as Otto Hahn |
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Emily Woof as Lise Meitner |
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Ian Duncan as Charles de Breteuil |
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James Tovell as Manson |
| Directing | Gary Johnstone | Director |
| Writing | David Bodanis | Writer |
| Writing | Gary Johnstone | Writer |
| Directing | Nick Justin | First Assistant Director |
