All language subtitles for E=mc2 - Einstein and the Worlds Most Famous Equation

100 years ago, a deceptively
simple formula was written.

It held the key to how our world began
and why it works as it does.

It led to the creation
of the atom bomb

and it uncovered the
darkest secrets of the universe.

Its author was a youthful Albert Einstein.

It's one of the most important and certainly
the most famous equation in the world.

E equals mc squared.

All aboard.

When we think of E = mc2
we have this vision of Einstein

as an old wrinkly man with white hair.

E = mc2 is not about an old Einstein.

It's actually about a young, energetic,
dynamic, even a sexy Einstein.

But while we've all heard
of young Einstein's equation

very few of us know what it means.

In fact, E=mc2 is so remarkable that

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

Albert, darling, you're later
then I expected tonight.

We've only got sausage and
cheese tonight. Which is it?

We need to talk!

Has something happened?

Oh, no, nothing, sorry. No.

I spend most of the day staring at
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, dinner!

Food, then talk.

I think the gods are laughing at me.

But the gods were not laughing at Einstein.

What he'd done has combined
in one stunning insight,

the work of many great visionaries.

This is the story of Einstein and all
the scientists who went before.

Who'd fought and even died to create
each part of the equation.

It's a tale of ambition, betrayal,
heartache and deceit.

And the story of E=mc2 starts long before
the birth of its creator, 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,

the crack of lightning.

The idea that there might be some sort of
overarching, unifying energy

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

One poor, hungry man's drive
to understand the hidden

mysteries of nature
would begin to change all that.

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.

Faraday had impressed one
of his master's customers

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Electricity, ladies and gentlemen,

a mysterious force that
can unravel the confusing mixture

of intermingled substances
that surround us and produce pure,

pure elements. How do we do this?

Davy was an absolutely first-rate scientist

however, many will come to say that
his greatest discovery is Michael Faraday.

...unknown metals.
Unknown that is until I,

I isolated potassium from
molten potash and sodium,

as I showed you last time,
from common salt.

That same metal...

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.

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.

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.

Despite this humiliating setback,

Faraday was determined
to break free from his daily toil.

His patience was rewarded.

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.

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.

The battery had just been invented

and all manner of experiments
were being performed.

But no one really understood what
this strange force of electricity was.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Well, that may be what they teach
at Cambridge, but it doesn't explain

what's happening before our eyes.

Now, now. Let's just get on. Let's swap
the compass to below the wire.

Why the compass was deflected
at right angles,

why the electricity was affecting
the compass at all,

dumbfounded Davy and many others.

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

For Faraday, however,
the problem became an obsession.

It was a fascination
inspired by his religion.

For him this was a way
to understand God's hidden mysteries.

There is a small, almost persecuted group
in London called the Sandemanians.

They were religious...
not really a sect,

they were just a small sub-sect,
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.

Faraday was different from anybody else.

He had a flair for understanding
his experiments,

for understanding what was
really going on inside them.

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.

But Faraday's great leap
of the imagination

was to turn this experiment on its head.

Instead of an electrified
wire moving a compass,

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

I've never seen you like this, Faraday.

You look like a happy child.

I'm shaking, Newman.

Underneath I'm shaking.

You see, John, you see?

Yes.

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.

Although he didn't realize it at the time,

Faraday had also just demonstrated
the overarching principle of energy.

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.

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 electro-magnetic 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.

Faraday was elected
to the Royal Society.

Davy died five years later,
a victim of his puncheon for laughing gas.

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

to a whole new understanding of energy.

He'd started what Einstein would like
to call "The Great Revolution".

Albert Einstein grew up in an industrial
society obsessed with energy.

All the forces of nature had been unified

and man taught he was the master
of this new power.

Young Einstein was going to pull
this cosy world view apart.

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.

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. 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.

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 the XV was on the throne
of France, but the ancient,

absolute power of the monarchy over
the people was starting to be challenged.

Jacques, leave the windows,
forget the rain, we need air.

The French Revolution was
just around the corner.

This was the era of the 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.

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 move on to a plate of milk?

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.

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.

Monsieur, with the greatest of respect to
a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences,

your gut must think
your throat has been slit.

Whereas your gut,
Count, is, no doubt,

petitioning the Academy for
a widening of your throat.

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.

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 de Amerval?

- There is a plan, but it is not mine.
- Then I must contrive to save you.

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.

However, 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.

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?

Mmmm, 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.

Mmmm.

When the metal rusts,
does it get heavier or lighter?

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

Ooooohhh...

Then perhaps this little butterfly
should land

and allow me 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...
- Huh? 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.

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 Enterprise".

She was central to the whole
research effort.

Monsieur, that is a terrible thing to say.
You are a cheeky man.

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
embedded 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.

Aha! 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.

Voila.

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 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.

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 recreate 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.

But Lavoisier's exacting methods
were also starting to anger

the growing mob of hungry,
disenchanted Parisians.

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?

My god, another charletan
with an idea to peddle!

God give me patience.

Well, 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. If you will you excuse me,
I am extremely busy today

Thank you. Thank you.

So that is all? Then, good day, Monsieur.

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.

For years the Lavoisier's 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 lost.

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?

As the French Revolution exploded,

the royal family and whole
swathes of aristocrats

lost their heads on the guillotine.

To the French revolutionaries of 1790,

Lavoisier meant one thing
and one thing only:

he was the despised tax collector
who'd built the wall around Paris.

Lavoisier's job as a tax collector
brought him under suspicion.

He was denounced by a failed scientist

turned radical journalist, Jean-Paul Marat.

- Ou est Lavoisier?
- Je ne sais pas!

Lavoisier? Lavoisier?

Lavoisier?

What Lavoisier did was absolutely central
to science and especially to E = mc2,

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 raised 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
same weight as the original

city and the air around it before.

Nothing disappears.

By the time Einstein enrolled
as a physics student

the first two parts of the equation

E and m, energy and mass,
were in place.

They were reveiled as the
two great domains of nature.

Everything that existed fell
into one of these classifications.

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

But, of course, young Albert
didn't care much for 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.

- And so 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.

Hah. 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?

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.

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?"

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 young, 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.

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,
if we were together,

and we sped up and up until we caught up

to the front of a beam of light?

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.

The term "c" in E=mc2

stands for "celeritas".
It's Latin for "swiftness".

It's a recognition of light's
incredible speed,

faster then any other known substance,
670 million mph.

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.

For it is my contention that light itself

is just one form of these

vibrating lines of electromagnetism.

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 Clark Maxwell believed
in Faraday's farsighted vision,

and he had all the mathematical
skill to prove it.

Maxwell and the aging Faraday
became close friends.

James, James, forgive me.

A word of advice: don't get old.

Michael, how are you?

Oh, I'm fine.

Memory isn't too good though.

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.

As that magnetic charge moves
it creates a little piece of electricity.

Electricity?

Electricity and magnetism are interwoven,

like a never-ending braid,
so it is always pulsing forward.

That's wonderful.

Michael, Michael.

There's something very crucial in the math.

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...

It's the speed of light.

That is the speed of light.

You were right all along,

light is an electromagnetic wave.

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.

We have lectures in half an hour.

Oh, let me think: Professor Weber
and his life-draining monologue

or you, Mozart and James Clark 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.

Oh, why, my dear little Johnnie,
how you enchant a lady.

She's very pretty.

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

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 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.

And 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?

That doesn't make sense.

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.

Equations that explained how objects moved

and collided were in their infancy.

A crucial contribution to this subject would
come from an unusual source.

Meet the aristocratic, 16-year old daughter

of one of King Louis the XIV courtiers,
Emilie Du Ch�telet.

Quickly, father's coming.

Emilie du Ch�telet would have a
huge effect on physics

in her tragically short lifetime.

Unheard of, for a woman
in the eighteenth century,

she would publish many scientific works,

including a translation of
Sir Isaac Newton's Principia,

the greatest treatise on
motion ever written.

Du Ch�telet'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 provok'd,
and whence her hate;

For what offence the Queen of Heav'n 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 Emilie
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 Emilie 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 was permitted opportunity.

My dearest, Emilie. You are blessed
with intellect and courage.

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

In one sense, she is a woman utterly
out of her true time and place.

She is 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.

Du Ch�telet married a general
in the French army

at age nineteen 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 Ch�telet 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 Ch�telet hid him in her country home.

The poor little creature is devoted to him.

Isolated far from Paris, Du Ch�telet
and Voltaire turned her chateau

into a palace of learning and culture

complete with its
own tiny theatre

and all with the apparent
blessing of her husband.

There is a great deal of myth surrounding
Du Ch�telet 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 Voltaires' case,

to keep Voltaire out of jail.

And it is also true that Emilie Du Ch�telet
did have several affairs

of a fleeting nature.

She created an institution to rival that
of France's Royal Academy 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, all that I do.

Du Ch�telet 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 error 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 Ch�telet 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 "living force".

Many discounted his ideas,
but Leibniz was convinced

that the energy of an object

was made up of its mass times
its speed, 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, is 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'd find
in nature all the time.

Emilie, 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.

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'm sure, is primeval.

Aaah, 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.

Despite the overwhelming support for Newton,

Du Ch�telet did not waver in her belief.

Eventually, she came across an
experiment performed by a Dutch scientist,

Willem 'sGravesande that
would prove her point.

'sGravesande, in Leiden, has been
dropping lead balls into a pan of clay.

Dropping lead balls into clay?

How very imaginative.

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 Mister 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.

Well, the ball travels
four 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 twenty miles an hour,

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

If you're going three times as fast,

your going sixty 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.

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.

Emilie du Ch�telet 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...
- You are afraid?

Well you should have...

Oh, well, this child is obviously not mine,

nor is it your husband's.

Oh, Emilie, Emilie.

Emilie Du Ch�telet knew
that in the 18th century,

for a woman to become pregnant
at the age of forty-three

was really very dangerous, and all
the while she was pregnant

she had terrible premonitions
about what was going to happen.

All her life Du Ch�telet 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.

Emilie du Ch�telet's unwavering belief,

that the energy of an object is a function
of the square of its speed,

sparked a debate that was
as long as it was fierce.

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.

After the University Einstein had
all the parts of E=mc2.

Energy, mass, the speed of light and squared
were now the staples of modern physics.

But Einstein now longer had
an academic position.

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,

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.

But I wanted to hire a maid so I can
get back and finish my degree.

Now I'll 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?

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.

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.

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 borrow 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 are details.

Yes, but you can't feed your children
on his thoughts, Bertie.

So it turns out Einstein was going for 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.

As Einstein was ruminating on
how long it would take light

to reach him from clocks
at different distances,

he had a monumental insight.

Thank you, thank you!

I have completely solved the problem.

Albert?

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.

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 where you were.

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 steady pace of light itself.

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.

In Einstein's new world,
the one true constant

was not time or even
space, but light.

But Einstein's miracle year was not over;

in one last great 1905 paper,

he would propose an
even deeper unity.

As he computed all the implications
of his new theory

he noticed another strange connection,

energy and mass were being
forced together

by light's incredible but fixed speed.

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.

Look. 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.

Would you like me
to check your mathematics?

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=mc2.

With four familiar notes
in the scale of nature,

this patent officer had composed
a totally fresh melody,

the culmination of his 10 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.

"E = mc2."

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.

Probably the most miraculous year
in human science ends in silence.

The articles are published
to resounding... nothing.

I think the Gods are laughing at me.

Then slowly it starts:
a letter here, a letter there.

For four years Einstein answered
each inquiry dutifully,

trying to explain his difficult, complex
ideas to a confused physics community.

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.

Einstein had a fan club of just one.
Luckily,

it happened to be the
most important living physicist.

Einstein, Einstein.

Max Planck has sent someone
to see you.

- Max Planck?
- Yes, he has sent his assistant.

He's here to see you.

Max Planck encourages the
world's most eminent physicists

to take Einstein seriously.

After four years of waiting he was appointed
Professor of Physics at Zurich University.

From there his career was meteoric.

He was made Professor of Physics in Berlin,

achieved world renown and
became a household name.

He was 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 = mc2 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.

Einstein had astounded
the world with E=mc2.

It said that every single object
in the Universe is just a piece

of immensely compressed energy.

The ammount of energy
in an object is equal

to its mass times c,
the speed of light, squared.

In other words, its energy is equal
to its mass

times 90 billion billion.

But it would not be Einstein who
would unlock this vast energy.

Twenty-eight 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 women 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...

Ah yes, Herr Hahn. I have read both your
papers on Thorium and on Mesothorium.

Dr. Planck suggested that I...
Yes, he suggested that

I speak to you.
I need someone to collaborate with.

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 chemistry
and physics these days.

- Yes, yes.
- I'll ask Fischer for a laboratory then.

- Excellent.
- I'll speak to you soon.

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 terror and betrayal.

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

At first people thought it was
like a miniature cellular 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 = mc2,

the mass of a nucleus turning into energy?

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 woodshop.

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.

Ah, so his beard must be fireproof.

Good day, Herr Hahn.

Good day.

You see. I am nonexistent
to this place.

At least physicists recognize
me for my abilities.

Ah, yes, where would we chemists be
without the steadying hand of the physicist?

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 to have the title of Professor.

Lise, I have news.

You remember the art student I told you of?

Yes. Edith.

Yes, well, I have asked her to marry me,

and she has accepted.

Ah. Doctor Hahn, congratulations.

Yes, well, I wanted you
to be the first to know.

I'm very pleased for you,

very pleased.

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.

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.

The nucleus is our focus.
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,

it will be a breakthrough.

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.

Unlike many other jewish scientists, Meitner
refused to leave her work.

By 1938, her situation had become untenable.

The pressure on them all was unbearable.

Hahn, who was known for its anti-nazi views,

did his best to protect her.

At least, initially.

I need to talk to you about Lise.
Ah, not now, I'm too busy.

We have to protect her.

Oh...
How? What can we do?

The situation is the way it is.
Who knows what could happen next?

She can't stay. Its 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 any more.

When it became clear that Meitner would
be dismissed and probably arrested,

physicists all around Europe desperately
wrote letters inviting her to conferences,

to give her an excuse to leave Germany.

The Nazis refused her permission.

In July of 1938, a friend, 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.

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.

No matter the privations she suffered,

Lise was still thinking of physics.

Amazingly she and Hahn were
able to collaborate by letter.

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.

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?

I need your help,
come on let's go out.

But, I was hoping
you'd help me.

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 are 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 any more.

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.

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 that 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 and...

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 = mc2?

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

200 million electron volts.

He's split the atom.

No, no, no.
You've split the atom.

It was an amazing discovery.

Of course in the laboratory we are
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=mc2.

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.

Lise Meitner was betrayed,

refused a Nobel prize she deserved,

but her work was to have
a far greater legacy.

With E=mc2

she may have only broken apart
only a handful of atoms,

but the genie was out of the bottle.

Lise Meitner had shown that Einstein's E=mc2

was true, energy could be
released from matter.

But neighter of this pure scientists
had foreseen

the consequences of their discoveries.

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 atomicic 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.

The atomic bombs dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki

demonstrated the terrible destructive power
of E = mc2.

A few pounds of uranium and
plutonium were detonated,

splitting apart their atoms and
releasing vast amounts of energy.

While the pure inquisitiveness of the
world's most gifted scientists

ironically had brought humanity
a weapon of mass destruction,

the equation is now used to ask
the biggest question of all:

Where did we come from?

Today's generation of physicists see
E=mc2 in action every day.

In huge accelerators like this

atomic particles are fired at
almost the speed of light.

As they travel more and more
energy is pumped into them.

Just as Einstein predicted,
they grow in mass.

These are the exact conditions
that existed just after the Big Bang.

E = mc2 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.

Our sun is a huge furnace, floating in
space, and it's powered by E = mc2.

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.

And not only do stars emit energy,
in accordance with E = mc2,

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 = mc2.

Einstein built on the work of those
who went before him.

Now others have taken his
equation on further.

E=mc2 is being used to delve
back into time, to figure out exactly

how our universe started and,
if in fact, it will one day end.

Somewhere out there is yet
another genius with the answer.