This fourth episode of "Genius" traces the stunning developments of Albert Einstein's "annus mirabilus" (miraculous year) of 1905.
It was during that year that after Einstein's dissertation proposal was rejected by Professor Kliener, young Einstein wrote and published four papers that changed the world. Working under tremendous pressure at home and with lack of support from the university, Einstein's work finally comes to the attention of the distinguished scientist Max Planck. This will be a turning point for the genius.
Much of this episode details the relationship of Einstein and his wife, Maleva Maric, who was instrumental in assisting Einstein in his research. The film points out that Pierre Curie refused to accept the Nobel Prize unless his wife Marie was honored alongside him. By contrast, it never even occurred to Einstein to acknowledge Maleva in the publication of his articles. The program closes with a heartbroken Maleva, whom her husband callously treated after she gave up her own promising career to support him. Poor Maleva even had to endure a shrewish mother-in-law, who relegated her to the role of hausfrau.
This episode effectively developed the theme of Einstein's genius that emerged out of a constellation of leading scientists and breakthrough discoveries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One of the themes was Pierre Curie's assertion that "tools don't make discoveries; people do."
The unending curiosity of Einstein is explored with his thought experiments occurring in a market place while gazing at a clock, his playing with his little boy Alberti while contemplating the movements of a toy train, or his mind-wondering while pretending to work in the Bern patent office.
In the course of those thought experiments, Einstein comes to the realization that time is not absolute: the natural phenomenon of lightning is perceived differently by an individual standing still than someone who is standing on a moving train. In building on the Lorenz transformations, Einstein finally formulated his principle of relativity that essentially redefined the way we think about the universe.
It was during that year that after Einstein's dissertation proposal was rejected by Professor Kliener, young Einstein wrote and published four papers that changed the world. Working under tremendous pressure at home and with lack of support from the university, Einstein's work finally comes to the attention of the distinguished scientist Max Planck. This will be a turning point for the genius.
Much of this episode details the relationship of Einstein and his wife, Maleva Maric, who was instrumental in assisting Einstein in his research. The film points out that Pierre Curie refused to accept the Nobel Prize unless his wife Marie was honored alongside him. By contrast, it never even occurred to Einstein to acknowledge Maleva in the publication of his articles. The program closes with a heartbroken Maleva, whom her husband callously treated after she gave up her own promising career to support him. Poor Maleva even had to endure a shrewish mother-in-law, who relegated her to the role of hausfrau.
This episode effectively developed the theme of Einstein's genius that emerged out of a constellation of leading scientists and breakthrough discoveries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One of the themes was Pierre Curie's assertion that "tools don't make discoveries; people do."
The unending curiosity of Einstein is explored with his thought experiments occurring in a market place while gazing at a clock, his playing with his little boy Alberti while contemplating the movements of a toy train, or his mind-wondering while pretending to work in the Bern patent office.
In the course of those thought experiments, Einstein comes to the realization that time is not absolute: the natural phenomenon of lightning is perceived differently by an individual standing still than someone who is standing on a moving train. In building on the Lorenz transformations, Einstein finally formulated his principle of relativity that essentially redefined the way we think about the universe.
