WGBH Openvault
NOVA; Einstein’s Big Idea
09/01/2005
License Clip
More material is available from this program at the WGBH Archive. If you are a researcher interested in accessing the collection at WGBH, please email archive_requests@wgbh.org.
Undigitized item: Request Digitization
Untranscribed item: Request Transcription
- Series
- NOVA
- Program
- Einstein’s Big Idea
- Program Number
3213
- Series Description
Premiered March 1974 NOVA is a general-interest documentary series that addresses a single science issue each week. Billed as "science adventures for curious grown-ups" when it first aired in March, 1974, NOVA continues to offer an informative and entertaining approach to a challenging subject. 1996 marked NOVA's 23rd season, which makes it the longest-running science program on national television. It is also one of television's most acclaimed series, having won every major television award, most of them many times over. Series release date: 3/3/1974
- Program Description
Everybody's heard of it, but what does the world's most famous equation, E=mc2 really mean? NOVA dramatizes the stories of the men and women whose innovative thinking across four centuries led finally to Einstein's bold breakthrough. Based on David Bodanis' bestseller, E=mc2, EINSTEIN'S BIG IDEA celebrates the ingenuity and chronicles the human conflicts that ultimately unleashed the power of the atom, helping viewers gain a better understanding of the equation by tracking its history and the myriad numbers of ways it has changed the world. In all, an engrossing docudrama from the award-winning producers of NOVA, brimming with stories of triumph and failure, love and politics, bitter rivalries and revenge-not bad for five little symbols-all drawn from the lives and times of the scientists who intersected with the equation. Ultimately, EINSTEIN'S BIG IDEA is the story of young, ambitious scientists caught up by the huge forces of nature they seek to understand. The film stars Aidan McArdle as Einstein, Shirley Henderson as his wife Mileva, Stephen Robertson as Michael Faraday, Julian Rhind-Tut as Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, Richard Henshall as James Clerk Maxwell, Helene De Fougeroles as Emilie du Châtelet and Emily Woof as Lise Meitner.
- Duration
01:56:46
- Asset Type
Broadcast program
- Media Type
Video
- Genres
- Documentary
- Topics
- Science
- Citation
- Chicago: “NOVA; Einstein’s Big Idea,” 09/01/2005, WGBH Media Library & Archives, accessed September 18, 2018, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_2A6343D1EFE64FA599B34957D3AC30AE.
- MLA: “NOVA; Einstein’s Big Idea.” 09/01/2005. WGBH Media Library & Archives. Web. September 18, 2018. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_2A6343D1EFE64FA599B34957D3AC30AE>.
- APA: NOVA; Einstein’s Big Idea. Boston, MA: WGBH Media Library & Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_2A6343D1EFE64FA599B34957D3AC30AE