00:00:00
[Music]
00:00:03
they are
00:00:04
Misfits arrogant
00:00:07
Rebels they scorned conventional
00:00:10
wisdom and each conceived a radical new
00:00:14
vision of the
00:00:16
cosmos Galileo
00:00:19
galile Isaac Newton Albert
00:00:22
Einstein and Steven Hawking have all had
00:00:26
tumultuous
00:00:27
lives filled with great TR triumphs and
00:00:31
humbling
00:00:32
failures these are the people who would
00:00:34
dare to challenge they often run into
00:00:37
opposition and they generally don't deal
00:00:39
very well with that there was a kind of
00:00:41
a demon within them that wouldn't let
00:00:44
them do anything else it does take a
00:00:46
strong ego to say well I can solve this
00:00:48
I can figure out some little piece of
00:00:50
the
00:00:51
universe who were these brilliant Rebels
00:00:55
and what secrets of their minds allowed
00:00:57
them to think the unthinkable and reveal
00:01:00
the beauty and strangeness of the
00:01:04
[Music]
00:01:15
[Music]
00:01:19
universe in 16th century Europe life has
00:01:22
a certainty that later generations can
00:01:25
only
00:01:27
Envy everyone knows that the Earth Earth
00:01:30
is the center of the
00:01:32
universe but this reassuring vision is
00:01:35
beginning to
00:01:38
crack and one of those who does the most
00:01:40
to overturn it is a self-style
00:01:43
genius Galileo
00:01:46
galile gal of course was this cocky
00:01:48
individual who had an attitude the sort
00:01:51
of person who makes very close friends
00:01:53
and who makes lots of enemies but he had
00:01:55
a very sharp wit a very sharp mind and
00:01:58
with that he was able to probe some of
00:02:00
the deep Mysteries of the
00:02:02
universe this ambitious overconfident
00:02:05
scientist will remake the
00:02:08
world but pay a harsh
00:02:11
[Music]
00:02:17
price Galileo is born in
00:02:19
1564 in Pisa
00:02:22
[Music]
00:02:24
Italy his father a loot player is well
00:02:27
known for rejecting convention to create
00:02:30
a new form of musical
00:02:35
Harmony Galileo inherits his father's
00:02:40
rebelliousness at age 25 he becomes a
00:02:44
professor of mathematics at the
00:02:46
University of
00:02:48
Pisa but he'll grow scornful of his
00:02:50
colleagues who are still teaching the
00:02:53
scientific theories of the Greek
00:02:54
philosopher Aristotle almost 2,000 years
00:02:58
after his death
00:03:02
we forget the fact that before Galileo
00:03:04
there really was no science as we know
00:03:07
it according to the Aristotelian
00:03:09
Philosophy for example objects moved and
00:03:12
came to rest not because of friction but
00:03:15
because they got tired and objects fell
00:03:18
to the ground not because of gravity but
00:03:20
because they longed to be United with
00:03:22
the
00:03:24
Earth to Galileo such explanations seem
00:03:28
absurd
00:03:30
these Grand personages who set out to
00:03:33
discover the great truth and never quite
00:03:35
find it give me a pain he later writes
00:03:40
they can't find it because they're
00:03:41
always looking in the wrong
00:03:43
[Music]
00:03:48
place now Galileo is about to shatter
00:03:52
thousands of years of
00:03:55
belief his intuition tells him that
00:03:57
objects move not because of desires but
00:04:01
because of deep mathematical
00:04:03
[Music]
00:04:05
laws and his Unthinkable step is to find
00:04:08
them through
00:04:10
experiments something few people have
00:04:12
done
00:04:13
[Music]
00:04:16
before he begins by studying falling
00:04:21
bodies physicist Steven
00:04:25
Hawking Galileo pointed out that simple
00:04:29
observation s like dropping weights from
00:04:32
a height show things do not work the way
00:04:36
the ancient Greeks
00:04:38
said this must have been seen by many
00:04:41
people but they had put it down to
00:04:43
imperfect
00:04:46
observations for the first time ever
00:04:49
Galileo begins to work out basic laws of
00:04:52
motion such as how speed is determined
00:04:55
by time and
00:04:58
acceleration it was one of the the
00:04:59
Geniuses of Galileo to slow down the
00:05:02
acceleration of gravity he got an
00:05:05
incline plane and had a ball roll down
00:05:07
the plane and then you could see with
00:05:09
your own eyes the fact that an object
00:05:12
speeded up as it went down so he
00:05:14
introduced the concept of
00:05:17
acceleration to us that seemed so
00:05:20
obvious and logical that was a major
00:05:23
mathematical breakthrough to understand
00:05:26
Motion in those terms
00:05:30
for his role as the first experimentor
00:05:33
Albert Einstein will later call him the
00:05:35
father of modern
00:05:38
[Music]
00:05:39
physics Galileo has pioneered the path
00:05:43
that Newton and Einstein will
00:05:45
follow the search for mathematical laws
00:05:49
that lie behind all
00:05:51
motion but progress is
00:05:54
slow only at the end of his life will
00:05:57
they finally be published
00:06:04
at age 45 Galileo is still a poorly paid
00:06:10
mathematician but ambitiousness and
00:06:12
arrogance will soon catapult him to
00:06:15
fame and be his
00:06:20
undoing in 1609 Galileo hears rumors of
00:06:24
a toy like spy glass that makes distant
00:06:27
objects appear near
00:06:31
resolving to capitalize on it he quickly
00:06:34
learns to grind
00:06:35
[Music]
00:06:37
lenses within a few weeks he arrives in
00:06:40
Venice with a telescope he Champions as
00:06:43
his own
00:06:45
invention he impresses venice's Navy so
00:06:48
much that officials double his
00:06:51
salary Galileo did not bother to tell
00:06:54
them that this was an instrument that
00:06:56
was being exhibited and sold in many
00:07:00
other places there was considerable
00:07:03
Chagrin uh when they discovered uh that
00:07:06
in fact this was not Galileo's unique
00:07:10
invention uh well what can you say uh he
00:07:13
was obviously uh uh being a good
00:07:16
businessman
00:07:19
there to the freethinking Galileo the
00:07:23
telescope also offers an opportunity to
00:07:26
ask questions few others dare
00:07:31
60 years earlier the astronomer cernus
00:07:34
proposed the radical idea that the Earth
00:07:38
revolves around the
00:07:41
Sun but cernus had little evidence for
00:07:44
his
00:07:46
theory and it contradicts passages in
00:07:48
the
00:07:50
Bible in the time of the Inquisition
00:07:53
such speculation Treads close to heresy
00:08:00
[Music]
00:08:02
but Galileo is
00:08:05
unfazed he is the first astronomer to
00:08:08
train a telescope on the
00:08:11
heavens and he sees the universe as
00:08:14
never
00:08:17
before he was thrilled by the fact that
00:08:19
this telescope is opening whole
00:08:23
worlds he draws pictures and diagrams
00:08:27
then he couldn't draw fast enough
00:08:31
[Music]
00:08:33
Galileo Works feverishly night after
00:08:36
night and he makes a startling
00:08:39
find he discovers four moons orbiting
00:08:44
Jupiter Galileo's evidence that not all
00:08:47
objects orbit the earth lends strong
00:08:50
support to the theory that the Earth
00:08:53
itself could revolve around the
00:08:56
Sun but contradicting the Bible
00:09:00
is theological
00:09:02
[Music]
00:09:07
Dynamite for those who cast doubt on his
00:09:10
new theories Galileo has no
00:09:14
patience he's seen the universe in a new
00:09:17
way with his own
00:09:21
eyes how can I do this and not be merely
00:09:24
wasting my time he writes when those
00:09:27
parapatics who must be convinced show
00:09:30
themselves incapable of following even
00:09:33
the simplest and easiest of
00:09:35
arguments Galileo used his cutting wit
00:09:39
to cut people down and that didn't
00:09:42
necessarily win him a lot of
00:09:47
friends in 1615 at age 51 Galileo goes
00:09:52
to Rome to argue his
00:09:55
case it may be his greatest mistake
00:10:01
the church orders him to cease teaching
00:10:03
that the Earth orbits the
00:10:06
Sun but Galileo pushes his
00:10:10
luck 9 years later he asks to State his
00:10:14
case
00:10:15
again this time a new pope is a personal
00:10:20
friend and Galileo wins permission to
00:10:23
write a
00:10:26
book ever scornful of opponent Galileo
00:10:30
writes a dialogue and places Arguments
00:10:32
for the two sides in the mouths of
00:10:35
characters who are thinly
00:10:38
disguised when he wrote his books it was
00:10:41
very clear who was the smart one who was
00:10:44
the standin for Galileo while the
00:10:47
restian come out as the
00:10:52
fools in
00:10:54
1633 Galileo is arrested by the
00:10:57
Inquisition
00:10:59
the church accuses him of
00:11:01
[Music]
00:11:03
heresy but perhaps the real reason that
00:11:05
Galileo is brought to trial is that he
00:11:08
has gone too far in his efforts to
00:11:13
persuade Galileo has put one of the
00:11:16
Pope's favorite arguments into the mouth
00:11:19
of a foolish character in his dialogue
00:11:22
the pope was told by people around him
00:11:25
that Galileo had tried in the book to
00:11:28
make the Pope a fool and it was his
00:11:31
personal decision to prosecute Galileo
00:11:34
to the hilt and and have him in house AR
00:11:38
rest for the rest of his life it was not
00:11:40
really a Church decision it was the
00:11:42
Pope's personal decision out of solid
00:11:45
anger toward a
00:11:49
friend Galileo expects a simple
00:11:54
compromise instead he is threatened with
00:11:57
torture
00:12:01
bowing to the inevitable he falls to his
00:12:04
knees and
00:12:11
recants for his last8 years Galileo
00:12:15
lives under house arrest a broken
00:12:19
man he will gain Immortal Fame for
00:12:22
championing the view that the Earth
00:12:24
moves around the Sun
00:12:29
but to the scientists who succeed him
00:12:31
his greatest achievement is
00:12:37
different in his final years he writes a
00:12:40
book that completes the work that he
00:12:42
began while
00:12:44
young he shows how it is possible to use
00:12:48
mathematics to analyze
00:12:51
[Music]
00:12:54
motion ironically the year Galileo dies
00:12:59
a boy is born 800 miles away who will
00:13:02
bring Galileo's ideas to
00:13:05
completion he will also be one of the
00:13:08
strangest scientists of all
00:13:11
[Music]
00:13:17
time perhaps no scientist has ever
00:13:20
worked so hard without regard for food
00:13:24
sleep or human relations as Isaac Newton
00:13:28
Isaac Newton was a much darker figure he
00:13:31
was a loner he was pathologically
00:13:33
incapable of small talk we would use the
00:13:37
term Obsession I would say he's the
00:13:39
closest example I can think of of
00:13:41
someone who was consumed by his
00:13:45
work he may also be the greatest
00:13:48
scientist of all
00:13:50
time when he is Born the physical world
00:13:54
is barely
00:13:55
understood yet by the time he dies he's
00:13:59
worked out the precise laws that
00:14:01
describe all motion from the fall of an
00:14:04
apple to the orbits of
00:14:07
planets there just hasn't been another
00:14:10
human being we know of quite like
00:14:20
Newton in
00:14:22
1642 Isaac Newton is born in a remote
00:14:25
English
00:14:26
Village his childhood is an unhappy
00:14:30
one his father dies before he's born and
00:14:34
when he is just three his mother Farms
00:14:37
him out to a Stern Puritan
00:14:40
grandmother when his mother remarried
00:14:44
and left him with his grandmother Newton
00:14:47
felt betrayed and
00:14:49
isolated and I think he never quite got
00:14:52
over
00:14:55
that he will later write that his
00:14:57
childhood sins
00:14:59
included threatening to burn his mother
00:15:01
and stepfather in their
00:15:08
house Newton does not always do well in
00:15:12
school but he becomes a curiosity in his
00:15:15
village for building extraordinary
00:15:18
mechanical devices such as
00:15:22
windmills a school Master convinces his
00:15:25
mother to send him to University
00:15:27
[Music]
00:15:30
at Trinity College Cambridge most
00:15:32
students drink and carouse more than
00:15:35
they
00:15:36
study Newton prefers to be isolated and
00:15:41
alone here looking around him were a lot
00:15:44
of people who had not the least interest
00:15:47
in books who came from well off families
00:15:50
he must have felt terribly out of place
00:15:52
and also I suspect knowing the way the
00:15:54
students work he must have been regarded
00:15:56
as an oddball
00:15:59
Newton a Puritan is obsessed with
00:16:03
sin he adopts strict emotional and
00:16:06
sexual limits and lives a reclusive
00:16:09
monk-like
00:16:10
existence Newton was so different from
00:16:13
Galileo because Newton was one of the
00:16:16
most private people uh that you would
00:16:19
ever know about he didn't take pains to
00:16:22
make friends and somehow he didn't
00:16:24
relate easily to people he just pulled
00:16:27
back from them
00:16:30
throughout his entire life he has no
00:16:33
love affairs and few
00:16:35
[Music]
00:16:37
friends some Scholars speculate that
00:16:40
Newton was
00:16:42
homosexual others that he simply decides
00:16:45
he has no time for anything but
00:16:48
work it is believed he dies a
00:16:51
[Music]
00:16:56
virgin in School Newton pours all of his
00:16:59
passion into his
00:17:03
studies like Galileo he's captivated by
00:17:07
[Music]
00:17:09
mathematics he learns advanced math on
00:17:12
his
00:17:13
own and then he begins to create a new
00:17:17
mathematics to analyze
00:17:20
motion he invents
00:17:25
calculus Newton is fascinated by the way
00:17:28
the sun RIS es and sets in an unbroken
00:17:32
Arc Newton's brilliant Insight was the
00:17:36
fact when objects move they can be
00:17:38
viewed incrementally piece by piece tiny
00:17:41
little increments at a time and when you
00:17:43
add up this motion you get beautiful
00:17:46
spirals you get ellipses you get circles
00:17:50
and just remember that when Isaac Newton
00:17:51
was scribbling down all his notes he was
00:17:54
creating calculus at the rate at which
00:17:57
freshman in college learn
00:18:02
it had he told anyone he would have been
00:18:05
recognized as the greatest mathematician
00:18:07
in
00:18:08
Europe but Newton keeps his discoveries
00:18:11
to
00:18:12
himself preferring to work out the
00:18:15
details
00:18:17
[Music]
00:18:23
alone several years later at age 24
00:18:27
Newton is living in his mother's house
00:18:30
house here he has an inspiration that
00:18:34
will revolutionize all of
00:18:37
physics he will unlock the mystery of
00:18:41
what makes the planets
00:18:43
move Isaac newon viewed the world
00:18:46
pictorially geometrically and one day
00:18:49
while walking down his estate he saw an
00:18:52
apple
00:18:53
fall and then he gazed up and he saw the
00:18:56
moon and then he asked the key question
00:18:59
the question that unlocked the secret of
00:19:02
the heavens if an apple Falls does the
00:19:06
moon also
00:19:08
fall and then perhaps one of the
00:19:10
greatest flashes of insight he realized
00:19:14
that gravity which then takes an apple
00:19:17
and makes it fall to the Earth is the
00:19:19
same force that could grab the Moon the
00:19:21
Moon in the heavens and make the moon
00:19:23
fall around the
00:19:27
earth while G Alo began the study of how
00:19:30
gravity acts on
00:19:32
Earth Newton is the first to recognize
00:19:35
that gravity also moves the planets and
00:19:40
stars this was an
00:19:43
absolutely world shaking change Newton
00:19:47
essentially showed that the laws of the
00:19:52
heavens were the same as the laws down
00:19:55
here on Earth
00:19:57
[Music]
00:19:58
but when he tries to work out the
00:20:01
details the complex mathematics eludes
00:20:05
him he will keep his great breakthrough
00:20:07
to himself for almost 20
00:20:13
[Music]
00:20:16
years Newton soon becomes a professor of
00:20:19
mathematics at Cambridge
00:20:23
University with few teaching
00:20:25
responsibilities he works on math and
00:20:28
physics Around the
00:20:30
Clock his colleagues will soon recognize
00:20:34
his
00:20:35
Brilliance as well as his prickly and
00:20:37
strange
00:20:41
nature in
00:20:43
1672 Newton's invention of a new
00:20:46
telescope wins him admission to the
00:20:48
Royal Society England's Association of
00:20:51
greatest
00:20:54
scientists flattered Newton allows them
00:20:57
to publish a brilliant paper paper on
00:21:01
Optics but when the Great physicist
00:21:03
Robert Hook erroneously challenges his
00:21:07
theory Newton flies into a rage and
00:21:11
threatens to withdraw from the Royal
00:21:13
Society his reaction to criticism is
00:21:16
almost always to carefully explain why
00:21:19
what the other person has just said is
00:21:21
out and out
00:21:23
foolish he was an extraordinarily
00:21:26
fragile personality
00:21:28
as one of his biographers had said his
00:21:32
motto is rule or sulk and he spent a lot
00:21:36
of time
00:21:39
sulking some historians speculate that
00:21:42
Newton's
00:21:43
vindictiveness inordinate sensitivity to
00:21:46
criticism and obsessive work reveals
00:21:49
symptoms of a mental illness such as
00:21:52
manic
00:21:55
depression we will never know
00:22:00
if he does have a mental illness it does
00:22:03
not slow him
00:22:05
[Music]
00:22:09
down at the age of 42 Newton is asked to
00:22:13
solve a problem that is baffling
00:22:16
England's greatest
00:22:19
physicists what mathematics describes
00:22:22
the orbit of planets around the Sun
00:22:28
seized by inspiration Newton shuts his
00:22:32
door and begins work on his greatest
00:22:35
[Music]
00:22:39
masterpiece like Galileo he is Guided by
00:22:42
strong
00:22:46
intuition now he sets out to crack the
00:22:49
complex mathematics of gravity that he
00:22:51
began years
00:22:53
[Music]
00:22:55
earlier for almost 2 years he
00:22:58
communicates with almost no
00:23:02
one his only form of exercise is
00:23:07
pacing he would sleep very little that
00:23:09
he would work 18 20 hours a day that he
00:23:12
would skip meals and simply right he had
00:23:17
the power the power to sit in his chair
00:23:21
undistracted focusing obsessed obsessed
00:23:24
with one problem for years at a time
00:23:28
until finally
00:23:31
cracked at last Newton reemerges with a
00:23:35
masterpiece that will change the
00:23:38
world the
00:23:41
prinkipia a ruthless simplifier Newton
00:23:44
strikes at the
00:23:46
fundamentals he uncovers how Mass
00:23:49
interacts with Force inertia and
00:23:54
[Music]
00:23:56
acceleration but his greatest in sight
00:23:59
is to define
00:24:01
gravity he is the first to call gravity
00:24:03
a force acting at a
00:24:07
distance and through breathtaking
00:24:09
mathematical breakthroughs Newton lays
00:24:11
out the precise laws that determine the
00:24:14
motion of all
00:24:17
objects Newton's principia published in
00:24:21
1687 was a scientific
00:24:24
revolution in it Newton gave the first
00:24:28
precise description of the laws that
00:24:30
govern the motion of bodies from Canon
00:24:33
balls to
00:24:34
[Music]
00:24:36
planets when you look at the prinkipia
00:24:39
and the number of mathematical problems
00:24:41
solved in it doing that in an 18-month
00:24:45
period this is not a normal human being
00:24:48
in any sense of the
00:24:50
[Music]
00:24:53
word Newton has completed Galileo's
00:24:56
quest to mathematize motion
00:25:00
but over 200 years later another
00:25:03
arrogant Rebel will discover that at
00:25:06
very high speeds Newton's Laws
00:25:10
fail and the universe is Stranger than
00:25:13
anyone ever
00:25:15
[Music]
00:25:20
imagined at the age of 16 Albert
00:25:24
Einstein asks a simple
00:25:27
question what would happen if he ran as
00:25:30
fast as a wave of
00:25:32
light would the light wave appear to
00:25:34
stand
00:25:36
still when he returns to this image less
00:25:39
than 10 years later he will
00:25:41
revolutionize our understanding of space
00:25:44
and time he L to imagine worlds that
00:25:47
didn't exist that was his power the
00:25:50
power that he could see things
00:25:52
physically in a picture things that
00:25:54
other people couldn't
00:25:56
see the man who makes these
00:25:59
breakthroughs is an absent-minded
00:26:01
Professor a twinkle-eyed lover of
00:26:05
humanity but he's also selfish has two
00:26:08
failed marriages and confesses himself
00:26:12
an emotional
00:26:17
failure Albert Einstein is born in 1879
00:26:22
in southern Germany to middleclass
00:26:24
Jewish
00:26:26
parents as a child
00:26:28
he is quiet and
00:26:30
withdrawn his parents began to think
00:26:33
maybe he was because it took so
00:26:36
long before he began to speak uh but uh
00:26:41
he was just busy thinking
00:26:44
apparently as a young boy he is
00:26:47
fascinated by puzzles and games and
00:26:50
shows remarkable
00:26:54
perseverance at age nine he builds a
00:26:57
tower of cars 14 stories
00:27:01
high by all accounts Einstein as a child
00:27:05
was a nerd and as a consequence the
00:27:07
other kids would make fun of him he was
00:27:09
aart he lived in the world of books the
00:27:12
world of
00:27:14
ideas in 1896 the 17-year-old Einstein
00:27:19
wins admission to the
00:27:21
eth the MIT of
00:27:24
Switzerland like Galileo he is witty and
00:27:28
sharp with a sense of humor and is also
00:27:31
a
00:27:35
rebel Einstein has resolved to become a
00:27:38
theoretical
00:27:40
physicist but he feels
00:27:43
styed his physics Professor har Weber
00:27:46
has no interest in the latest
00:27:48
cuttingedge theories of light and
00:27:54
electricity he passes his exams only by
00:27:57
borrowing a friend's class notes and
00:27:59
graduates with unexceptional
00:28:03
grades his behavior has not gone
00:28:07
unnoticed all of Einstein's applications
00:28:09
for jobs at universities are
00:28:13
rejected after Einstein graduated from
00:28:15
the University he became a loser in
00:28:19
every sense of the word his Professor
00:28:23
Weber actively disliked the Young
00:28:26
Einstein he wrote letters recommendation
00:28:28
which we now know undermined his chance
00:28:31
at any kind of academic appointment even
00:28:34
before he became a physicist his life as
00:28:37
a physicist was
00:28:43
over 2 years after leaving University
00:28:46
Einstein finally finds a job as a clerk
00:28:49
in a Swiss patent
00:28:52
office his work is far removed from
00:28:55
theoretical physics but this seemingly
00:28:58
dead end job will be his
00:29:02
salvation in burn the 23-year-old clerk
00:29:06
quickly settles into a bouro
00:29:09
existence he marries Mala Merit a fellow
00:29:13
student from the
00:29:16
University luckily his job is
00:29:18
undemanding enough that he can steal
00:29:21
time to Grapple with cuttingedge
00:29:22
questions in physics such as the nature
00:29:25
of light
00:29:28
others in such circumstances would have
00:29:30
just thrown in the towel and would have
00:29:31
given up on a career in physics you get
00:29:34
the sense that this is someone who just
00:29:36
uh was possessed by an intellectual
00:29:37
demon and couldn't do other than what he
00:29:40
[Music]
00:29:43
did now Einstein returns to a simple
00:29:46
image he first imagined in high
00:29:50
school what would happen if he ran as
00:29:52
fast as a wave of
00:29:55
light both Isaac Newton and Einstein
00:29:58
shared this uncanny ability to create
00:30:02
simple pictures that children could
00:30:05
understand and extract from that images
00:30:08
which change the
00:30:10
universe according to Newton the speed
00:30:13
of a light beam should appear slower to
00:30:15
someone who runs alongside it but light
00:30:18
does not seem to obey Newton's
00:30:21
Laws Einstein says the light beam moves
00:30:23
away from you at the speed of light no
00:30:25
matter how fast you move you can never
00:30:27
catch up the the light beam you hit the
00:30:29
accelerator you Gunn the engine the
00:30:31
Light Beam still moves away from you at
00:30:32
the same rate how's that possible how is
00:30:36
it possible you can never catch up to a
00:30:37
light
00:30:41
beam now like Galileo and Newton before
00:30:45
him Einstein ruthlessly questions
00:30:48
assumptions that no one else
00:30:52
dares if the speed of light never
00:30:56
changes then something else must
00:30:59
give then he had it time is relative
00:31:04
time is relative to the speed at which
00:31:06
you move and that idea shook the
00:31:11
universe Einstein has discovered that
00:31:14
Newton's Laws only hold true for the
00:31:16
world of everyday
00:31:19
experience when objects travel its
00:31:22
speeds close to the speed of
00:31:24
light Common Sense breaks down
00:31:28
distances
00:31:31
stretch and clocks tick more
00:31:36
slowly Newton forgive me Einstein writes
00:31:41
later at the age of just 26 he topples
00:31:45
Newton's Laws of Motion with his theory
00:31:48
of special
00:31:50
[Music]
00:31:51
relativity with childlike questions and
00:31:54
simple
00:31:56
pictures Einstein changed the
00:32:00
[Music]
00:32:06
world in 1907 Einstein turns to new
00:32:10
scientific
00:32:12
challenges but newly published letters
00:32:15
reveal a little known personal
00:32:18
side as he creates his greatest work he
00:32:21
will withdraw within
00:32:23
himself and those closest to him will
00:32:26
suffer
00:32:31
Einstein's wife Mala was once a physics
00:32:34
student who dreamed of her own
00:32:36
scientific
00:32:38
achievements but now as Einstein
00:32:41
lectures and collaborates with others
00:32:43
Mala hardly sees
00:32:46
him she fears she is losing both her
00:32:49
husband and her
00:32:53
dream then in 1914 Mala discovers that
00:32:57
she has a romantic
00:32:59
rival Elsa lenthal Einstein's
00:33:04
cousin Einstein's marriage falls
00:33:08
apart you know I'd love to have a beer
00:33:10
with Einstein but I wouldn't introduce
00:33:12
him to my sister there was a sense where
00:33:15
the the rules didn't necessarily have to
00:33:17
apply to
00:33:19
him Einstein will marry Elsa who's
00:33:23
willing to keep house for him with fewer
00:33:25
expectations
00:33:28
he's given up on love in
00:33:31
marriage His science comes before all
00:33:38
else by age 35 Einstein is pursuing a
00:33:42
goal many physicists believe is
00:33:45
impossible his intuition tells him that
00:33:48
there must be a more general theory of
00:33:50
relativity that also explains the force
00:33:53
of
00:33:55
gravity like Newton Einstein is
00:34:00
obsessed for years he grapples with
00:34:03
mathematics of horrendous complexity
00:34:06
unsure whether he is on the right path
00:34:09
or a Fool's
00:34:11
errand he famously would worry a problem
00:34:14
for years on on on end almost like a dog
00:34:17
with a bone uh wouldn't let go of the
00:34:21
problem when he was working out general
00:34:23
relativity he almost had a nervous
00:34:25
breakdown he would concentrate to the
00:34:28
point that he lost an enormous amount of
00:34:30
weight he wouldn't eat he he focused on
00:34:33
a problem the same way that Isaac Newton
00:34:36
focused on a
00:34:39
[Music]
00:34:40
problem at last in the fall of
00:34:44
1915 Einstein realizes he's solved
00:34:48
it his great Insight is so strange even
00:34:52
physicists will struggle to comprehend
00:34:54
it
00:34:58
he proves mathematically that mass and
00:35:00
energy curve space and
00:35:03
time a massive object like the sun warps
00:35:07
space and time so much that a nearby
00:35:10
Planet moves in a curved path around
00:35:13
it to Newton they appeared to be
00:35:16
attracted by a
00:35:18
force but this is just an
00:35:21
[Music]
00:35:23
illusion the same phenomena holds true
00:35:26
on Earth
00:35:28
objects that appear to be pulled by a
00:35:30
gravitational force are actually
00:35:33
traveling through warped
00:35:36
SpaceTime Einstein's general theory of
00:35:39
relativity changed forever our ideas
00:35:42
about space and
00:35:44
time it is so beautiful it has to be
00:35:51
right Einstein arrives at a set of
00:35:54
equations governing space-time curvature
00:35:58
these simple lines describe the motion
00:36:01
of galaxies and the destiny of the
00:36:04
universe when we physicists look at the
00:36:07
equations of Albert
00:36:09
Einstein we
00:36:11
cry we cry because they are so gorgeous
00:36:15
realize that the motion of the heavens
00:36:17
with all the curves spaces and time
00:36:19
warps and what have you can be
00:36:21
summarized in an equation about an inch
00:36:24
long that is power that is incredible
00:36:28
that is
00:36:30
beautiful although Einstein will
00:36:32
continue working until the day he
00:36:35
dies by the time he is 40 he has
00:36:38
completed his greatest
00:36:44
work Galileo Applied Mathematics to
00:36:49
motion Newton perfected these laws for
00:36:52
everyday
00:36:54
experience but Einstein's search for a
00:36:57
deeper Theory revealed laws that govern
00:37:00
the entire
00:37:03
universe today another brilliant Rebel
00:37:07
is searching for an even broader
00:37:09
Theory a theory of
00:37:17
[Music]
00:37:20
everything no living scientist has
00:37:23
shaken the foundations of physics like
00:37:26
Galileo Newton or or
00:37:29
Einstein but among those who have
00:37:32
advanced cosmology's Frontiers is a once
00:37:35
lazy student named Steven
00:37:39
Hawking today he holds the same chair in
00:37:42
mathematics at Cambridge University as
00:37:45
Isaac
00:37:46
[Music]
00:37:48
Newton I was born 300 years after the
00:37:52
death of
00:37:53
Galileo I hold the same job at Cambridge
00:37:57
as new did and I work on Einstein's
00:38:00
general theory of
00:38:02
relativity of the three I feel closest
00:38:05
to
00:38:07
Galileo he followed his nose and was a
00:38:10
bit of a
00:38:12
[Music]
00:38:17
rebel Steven Hawking is born in 1942 in
00:38:21
Oxford
00:38:23
England like Galileo Newton and Einstein
00:38:26
as a child
00:38:28
he is fascinated by how things
00:38:32
work yet at Oxford University Hawking
00:38:36
hardly works at
00:38:38
all instead he relies on his
00:38:41
extraordinary facility with mathematics
00:38:43
to Coast
00:38:45
through Hawking spends most of his time
00:38:48
socializing and on the river with his
00:38:50
rowing
00:38:52
team by all accounts Steven Hawking was
00:38:56
not the kind of person Des ined for
00:38:58
greatness at College Steven was not the
00:39:01
hardest of workers Steven himself says
00:39:03
that his entire undergraduate period at
00:39:05
Oxford he only worked about 1,000 hours
00:39:07
which is an hour a day or on
00:39:11
average Hawking is bored and apathetic
00:39:15
nothing seems worth working
00:39:17
for yet a tragedy is about to strike
00:39:21
that will turn a Bor
00:39:23
intellect into a passionate mind
00:39:29
in
00:39:30
1962 Steven Hawking has just begun to
00:39:33
study cosmology as a graduate student at
00:39:36
Cambridge
00:39:39
University but signs of illness are
00:39:41
becoming too difficult to
00:39:44
ignore a slight speech
00:39:48
impediment difficulty pouring a
00:39:54
beer doctors tell Hawking he has Al Les
00:39:58
commonly known as Lou Garrick's
00:40:02
disease the regions of his brain that
00:40:05
control motion are wasting
00:40:08
away there is no
00:40:11
[Music]
00:40:13
cure the 20-year-old student learns that
00:40:16
his body will become
00:40:19
paralyzed his breathing muscles will
00:40:22
eventually seize up suffocating
00:40:25
him doctors say
00:40:27
he has just 2 years to
00:40:32
live Hawking falls into a deep
00:40:36
depression when Stephen was first
00:40:38
diagnosed as being ill he he really
00:40:41
didn't expect to live more than than a
00:40:42
year or two and therefore they didn't
00:40:44
see much point in even completing a
00:40:49
PhD but inexplicably his disease
00:40:52
progresses more slowly than predicted
00:40:57
he meets Janee wild the woman who will
00:41:00
become his
00:41:02
wife and he finds a
00:41:05
purpose I dreamt that I was going to be
00:41:07
executed he writes I suddenly realized
00:41:11
that there are a lot of worthwhile
00:41:13
things to do if I were
00:41:23
[Music]
00:41:25
reprieved now Hawking begins working
00:41:27
hard for the first time in his
00:41:30
life and to his surprise finds that he
00:41:34
likes
00:41:36
it by the early 1970s Steven Hawking is
00:41:41
a well-established
00:41:44
cosmologist he is also in a
00:41:47
wheelchair yet he is remarkably
00:41:50
stubborn nothing will keep him from
00:41:53
Living a normal
00:41:55
life he has children
00:41:58
he works
00:41:59
intensely and he is about to make a
00:42:02
great breakthrough that will extend
00:42:04
Einstein's theory in an unexpected
00:42:14
Direction Einstein's theory of general
00:42:16
relativity predicts the motion of very
00:42:19
large objects such as
00:42:22
galaxies but it cannot explain the
00:42:24
behavior of the tiniest subatomic
00:42:26
particles that are the building blocks
00:42:28
of the
00:42:30
universe their motion is only predicted
00:42:33
by a different Theory called quantum
00:42:37
mechanics and to the frustration of
00:42:39
Einstein and every physicist since the
00:42:43
two theories appear completely
00:42:48
incompatible yet Hawking is Brash enough
00:42:51
to tackle The
00:42:53
Impossible when Steven Hawking was doing
00:42:55
his pioneering work there were two armed
00:42:57
camps they hated each other they never
00:43:00
talked to each other on one side were
00:43:02
the true blue loyalists the ones who
00:43:05
held the flame of Albert Einstein
00:43:07
burning bright on the other Camp were
00:43:09
the quantum theorists they dealt with
00:43:11
the world of particles subatomic
00:43:13
particles hundreds of them thousands of
00:43:16
them and they didn't talk to each other
00:43:18
they had different mathematics they had
00:43:20
a different language a different
00:43:21
physical picture and here comes step
00:43:23
Hawking saying I'm going to try to marry
00:43:25
the two together well well that was
00:43:27
heresy no one had done that
00:43:32
before now Hawking asks what happens if
00:43:36
you look at a black hole a massive
00:43:39
object but zoom in to its smallest
00:43:43
scale Hawking also like Einstein has an
00:43:46
incredibly good nose that he has an
00:43:49
intuitive feel for interesting questions
00:43:52
to ask and how to ask
00:43:55
them black black holes are the most
00:43:58
bizarre and extreme prediction of
00:44:00
Einstein's theory of
00:44:02
gravity theoretically if a mass is
00:44:05
extremely concentrated for instance if a
00:44:09
star were compressed into a ball just
00:44:11
miles wide the space around it will
00:44:14
become so warped that gravity will keep
00:44:17
everything from escaping including
00:44:20
[Music]
00:44:23
light a black hole is a region of space
00:44:26
in which gravity is so strong that light
00:44:28
can never Escape it's like a one-way
00:44:31
membrane in which things can go in but
00:44:32
nothing ever comes out including light
00:44:35
and that's why it's called
00:44:39
black now Hawking attempts something his
00:44:41
colleagues assume is
00:44:44
impossible he uses the equations of
00:44:47
quantum theory to analyze what happens
00:44:50
to tiny particles trapped by gravity on
00:44:53
the edges of black holes
00:44:58
by now he can no longer
00:45:01
write if he was an experimentalist his
00:45:04
career would long be
00:45:06
over but Hawking has rarely even looked
00:45:09
through a
00:45:11
telescope and for Theory all he needs is
00:45:15
his
00:45:17
brain like Newton and Einstein Hawking
00:45:20
has great powers of
00:45:22
concentration he reruns long torturous
00:45:25
equations again and again in his head
00:45:28
checking and rechecking his
00:45:31
calculations he tends to think in
00:45:33
pictures and he tends to start with some
00:45:35
idea that he thinks he is right and he
00:45:39
and he goes from there he has to rely
00:45:42
upon Keen insight and leaps of logic to
00:45:45
compensate for the fact that he cannot
00:45:47
check every single line he just has a
00:45:50
tremendous
00:45:51
drive a tremendous determination to to
00:45:54
get to the bottom of things
00:45:57
[Music]
00:45:59
Hawkings results shock
00:46:02
him black holes are not completely cut
00:46:05
off from the rest of the universe as
00:46:06
once
00:46:08
believed instead their edges shed tiny
00:46:12
particles now called Hawking
00:46:16
radiation the arguments are so
00:46:18
compelling everyone now agrees that
00:46:20
black holes must give off Hing
00:46:24
radiation the radiation will carry away
00:46:27
energy and mass and the black holes will
00:46:30
slowly evaporate and eventually
00:46:36
disappear Hawking has shown that like
00:46:38
water in a boiling kettle black holes
00:46:41
slowly evaporate
00:46:43
[Music]
00:46:45
away just as
00:46:47
importantly he's proven that in one
00:46:49
particular case general relativity and
00:46:53
quantum theory can be fruitfully
00:46:55
combined
00:46:58
my discovery that black holes are not
00:47:00
completely black but should glow like
00:47:03
hot bodies was the first example of an
00:47:06
effect that depended on both the large
00:47:08
and small scale
00:47:11
theories when the result came out it it
00:47:14
was so beautiful it just had that feel
00:47:16
about it just talking about it was like
00:47:19
rolling candy on the
00:47:24
tongue finding a Theory of Everything a
00:47:27
deeper theory that unifies Einstein's
00:47:30
equations and quantum mechanics is now
00:47:32
the Holy Grail of
00:47:35
physics it would explain the origin of
00:47:38
the
00:47:39
universe and Hawking has created New
00:47:43
Hope that this Ultimate Puzzle can be
00:47:46
solved it's clear that Steven's
00:47:49
discovery of black hole radiant was was
00:47:51
an important piece of the final jigsaw
00:47:54
even though we don't really know what
00:47:55
the final jigsaw is yet
00:47:57
[Music]
00:48:01
who were the greatest
00:48:04
physicists they were ugly ducklings
00:48:07
Rebels and
00:48:10
nerds consumed by Deep intuition and
00:48:13
unafraid to question the most basic
00:48:17
assumptions it does take a strong ego to
00:48:19
say well that's not so tough I can crack
00:48:21
that I mean the odds are really against
00:48:23
you there's no guarantee that there are
00:48:25
any answers out there that that science
00:48:27
actually works you're really taking a
00:48:29
huge
00:48:31
chance their stubborn persistence
00:48:34
revealed deep laws of
00:48:36
nature but their Quest remains
00:48:41
unfinished and such Brilliant Minds come
00:48:44
along only once in a great
00:48:48
while yet who knows it's possible that
00:48:52
the next brilliant Rebel is already
00:48:55
Among Us
00:49:00
[Music]
00:49:23
[Music]
