NOVA | The Elegant Universe | 01 - Einstein's Dream (2003)
Eleven dimensions, parallel universes, and a world made out of strings? It's not science fiction, it's string theory.
2003-10-28 21:00:00 - Nova PBS
Bestselling author and physicist Brian Greene offers a tour of this seemingly strange world in "The Elegant Universe," a three-part Peabody Award-winning miniseries.
Part 1, "Einstein's Dream," introduces string theory and shows how modern physics, composed of two theories that are ferociously incompatible, reached its schizophrenic impasse.
One theory, general relativity, successfully describes big things like stars and galaxies, while another, quantum mechanics, is equally successful at explaining small things like atoms and subatomic particles.
Albert Einstein, the inventor of general relativity, dreamed of finding a single theory that would embrace all of nature's laws.
But in this quest for the so-called unified theory, Einstein came up empty-handed, and the conflict between general relativity and quantum mechanics has stymied all who've followed.
That is, until the discovery of string theory.
00:00 | Introduction
03:28 | Albert Einstein’s Theory of Everything
09:39 | The Law of Gravity: Newton vs Einstein
18:49 | What is Electromagnetism?
23:02 | Einstein’s Attempt to Unify Gravity and Electromagnetism
29:10 | The Strange Rules of Quantum Mechanics
36:00 | Strong and Weak Nuclear Forces
40:23 | Einstein’s Later Years and Death
43:42 | Black Holes and String Theory
49:49 | Conclusion
Premiered October 28, 2003 at 9 PM ET on PBS