KNTV PHILOSOPHY

ALBERT EINSTEIN (1879-1955)

The world's most famous scientist, Albert Einstein used his amazing mind to come up with ideas that no one had ever dreamt of before. From toothpaste to time travel, he set about explaining how everything in the universe works.

PROGRAMME OUTLINE

00:00 – 02:27

Holed up in their underground hideaway, Kierky and Nietzsche go wild for Albert Einstein, scruffy German genius and one of the greatest thinkers who has ever lived.

02:28 – 07:09
WHAT did Einstein do?

Einstein's greatest theories include the theory of relativity, which states that nothing can be absolutely still, but only still relative to another object in space. Einstein's theory of time travel was based on his idea that the speed of light is fixed, so space and time must change when one object is moving relative to another. He was the first person to understand that even a small object can release a vast amount of energy, which he expressed in the equation 'Energy (e) equals mass (m) multiplied by the speed of light ( c ) squared', or e=mc2.

07:10 – 12:30
WHO was Einstein?

Einstein was expelled from school. He had to put off his wedding because his family disapproved of the woman he loved. His flat feet ruled him out of military service, and he worked in the Patent Office instead. Einstein used to become so immersed in his thoughts that he'd forget about everything else. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Science in 1921.

12:31 – 15:30
WHEN Einstein was around, what else was going on?

Germany was struggling to recover from a grave economic crisis and wanted to become a European superpower. All men had to do two years' military service. Railways were expanded and aeroplanes invented. The First World War was another defining event in Einstein's life.

15:31 – 19:20
WHY did Einstein's ideas happen?

From his earliest life Einstein loved learning and was passionate about science. He was inspired by John Dalton's work on atoms and James Clerk Maxwell's ideas about electricity. After Einstein's death his brain was found to be bigger than average and to have a particularly highly developed parietal lobe – the area that governs intelligence.

19:21 – 24:00
WHAT do Einstein's ideas mean in today's world?

Einstein's theories underpin many ideas about the universe, including the Big Bang theory about how the universe was created, and string theory, which explains how the universe is held together. His ideas have helped scientists understand more about light, and have been used in inventions like television, remote controls and flash cameras. His work on developing liquids that can dissolve molecules is used in products such as toothpaste and shaving foam. Unhappily for the peace-loving Einstein, his work on atoms led to the detonation of the first nuclear bomb in 1945.