Genius On National Geographic Channel...anyone Watching?

Oh, thank you, Marlene! Had no idea that was on. I just set up my DVR to record the series. Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson. It looks excellent.

It is, Pat! I don't see your avatar, btw.....

oops, it's back!

I'm watching as well. Yes, there are many characteristics and behaviors in Einstein that line up with great and not-so-great artists and musicians and house painters and more.

I will say this: While I always rather envied Einstein, I don't envy his married life.

Wow! What a handful she was.

Very interesting, I'll try to find this channel...thanks.

I've watched the first episode. It was good. I've read several biographies on Albert's life and studied the portion of modern physics that covered the general and special relativity subject.

Richard Feynman is my favorite modern physicists and in my opinion the greater genius. Surely you're Joking Mr. Feynman and Genius are good reads.

I've been DVR'ing it, haven't watch any episodes yet. I thought it looked really good!

I may watch the rest on demand. Albert was kind of a jerk. He was like a vampire to his first wife who he stole ideas and used for his on advancement.

Drew, the series is based on the book....I'll be curious to see if that comes out about Mileva. Some recent research about their first child has come to light and the series has not included that.

I'm trying to catch up before Tuesday but I struggle so with the accents that the actors are faking...my only criticism.

CHuck, they both were!

I marathon watched the first 4 last week but number 2 was missing:( Very entertaining.

Karen...they seem to show two at a time...ours is goofed up too...we are missed number 6 but hope to get it Tuesday with number 7.....
it is always available on demand as well!
worse comes to worse, you can watch them on your computer ;)

I did watch it on demand. That's where number 2 was missing. I saw 6 when it recorded.

I do not have a VCR or TV, but I went to National Geographic's YouTube channel. The small videos there are very intense.

Dave

That's a good idea, Dave.

I've been watching, too. I think it has humanized the man behind the legend. The production quality is more like a movie than a TV series. In fact, (warning: geeky technical stuff ahead) if you look closely you can see thin black bars at the top and bottom of the screen indicating it was shot in the standard 1.85:1 theatrical aspect ratio rather than the 1.78:1 TV ratio.

-James
http://www.montereypeninsula.info

Im watching, So far so good! Learned a lot of interesting facts about him..

LOL I am finding myself tinkering with E=MC^2 this morning.

Dave

I've been finding myself pausing it to google information!

The problem with all of physics is the dimension of time. We do not have nor know the time system that would work for measures throughout the universe.

The clock on our wall that we use for physics equations is not nearly good enough. We are not sure what time really is.

Dave

David,
I have no interest in seguing into physics. This thread is about people watching the series and a connection to artists' characteristics and behaviors.

I'm on episode three now. I was struck at how sure he was about staying put and how that changed quickly after he was chased by a little boy in uniform. I could feel the fear. Marlene, do you know if this is an accurate account, or is it fictionalized to some degree? Historical fiction is one of my favorite reading genres, but I like straight up history, as well.

I am undecided to think of Albert as a polymath. He did have the reputation of being an accomplished violinist but he was so obsessed with the unified theory that his mind was more singularly focused. Methink this prevented him from other pursuits.

Pat,
I have read that the series has relied heavily on the book "Einstein" and his personal letters. That said, how much has been changed to work in a different form is up for grabs.
Drew, I agree

Episodes4, 5.6 and 7 are all airing tonight in a row.

Just finished watching episode 3.
We all know Albert won the Nobel peace prize but it was not for the theory of relativity. It was for photo-voltaics. What did he do with the money?

Drew, he left it to his ex-wife Mileva and his two sons in the divorce decree signed pior to receiving the money.

http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1848817_1848816_1848815,00.html

I thinking I just watched the last episode last night. Albert's visa was approved.

Albert warned Roosevelt about the possibility of the NAZI'S building an atomic bomb and he was excluded from the Manhattan.

I loved the series, but the final episode, watching the man's life come to an end, had me feeling very sad.

I was so glad he reunited with his son at the end and was sorry to see the series end, I have always admired him so much so I did this painting of him a couple of years ago:

I hated to see it end.....

SPOILERS! I hate reading spoilers. :(

I have recorder it and watched the first 4 (of 9). Guess. I'll skip this thread from now on.

rats.

There was nothing said that would have spoiled the series for anyone.....but John won't be reading this.
oh well.

I like your painting, Judy! I've really enjoyed seeing the story of who Einstein was in his personal life, beyond being a great scientific mind. This was so impressive, I'd love to see more productions like this. Frank Lloyd Wright comes to mind. Like Einstein, his personal life was quite dramatic.

Looked forward to seeing this every Tuesday night. After the last episode I researched the supporting characters like Einstein's assistant and Helen Dukas, the secretary. Nice to see she was taken care of after he died. Would love to see the next series be about Nikola Tesla.

Pablo Picasso is slated for season 2....can hardly wait!!

Oh, that is going to be good, Marlene! Picasso will be perfect.

I read something once about Einstein being so driven in his work that he cut the ends off of the arms of his shirts so he wouldn't have to take any time buttoning the sleeves. Not sure if that is true but sounds about right. I also wonder if he just didn't want to take the time to see a barber, because that hair of his certainly was unique.

Just finished watching the final 2 hours while I finished the last of my Arcanum oil painting series.. Quite a dramatic series. Fairly accurate from what I have read.
I got interested in Einstein's theories of relativity at about age of 10 when I read Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle. It describe Special Relativity such that a child could understand its effect on high velocity motion.

Pat,
I've tried to respond 3 times now...keep getting bumped off.
That shirt story could certainly be true! at least, not an ear, right?

My all time favorite book to gift is called "einstein's dreams". It's a tiny little book written by quantum physicist Alan Lightman. It takes place during his time at the patent office and each little chapter is a theory of vhow the world would be if time was truly relative.
example: in one town, people disocvered that time moves slower at higher altitudes, so they want to live on the mountain. The unhappy people stay at the bottom. It is a quick but fascinating read.


My interest started when rod Serling shared hi sfascination with time travel.

I would love to see a movie version. I usually don't watch series because I get upset when they get cancelled! I miss" the practice " ! There was another series with a lawyer" don't remember the name that got cancelled too. One of the members opened a shoe shop within the practice. The show was incredible! I couldn't believe it was cancelled!

The Einstein series was 10, one hour parts. It is now over.
Next season there will be another'series' on Picasso.
There is no oay to have made these 10 hours into a movie ...glad they didn't, too much would have been left out.

Here is the link for those who like to stream thier videos. I use Cromecast and it works great.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/genius/videos/einstein-chapter-one1/

Thanks, Drew,w for the link!

Marlene, I had watch all 10 of them and loved everyone of them. My first 4-years in college, my major was chemistry so I have lot of chemistry and physics. It bring back lot of memory of all the equations, perhaps the reason my major was chemistry because I am always good in number but lousy in spelling.
Drew, thank for all the explaining because it bring back lot of memory. By the way I also have a job from 9-5 for more than 30-years

Just came back to this thread and noticed the train and lightning discussion above. The program naturally presented a very simplistic version of Einrstein's thought experiment. It has nothing to do with the Doppler effect of thunder or wavelength shifting of light, It's merely an example of how a person in motion and a stationary observer see the same events differently.

In the complete experiment, there is a man on the station platform as a train passes by. There is a woman riding the train in its exact middle. As the train passes the station, at the exact moment that the woman is along side the man, two lightning bolts strike the train, one at the front and one at the rear. Both lightning strikes happen equidistant from both observers. The man on the platform sees the strikes as happening simultaneously since the light from both reach him at the same time. He concludes that the strikes were simultaneous.

To the woman on the train, because she travels a small disatance in the time it takes for the light to reach her, she sees the light from the front strike slightly before the light from the back strike, She therefore concludes that the strikes occured at slightly different times.

Einstein postulated that both are correct and that time and distance are not constant but relative to the observer. If this were not the case, simutaneous events should be simultaneous for everyone.

To-Tam Gerwe, You are welcome. I've was an engineer for a large electrical and essential utility company for over 25 years. I've enjoyed the subject of post newtonian physics while studying electrical engineering. Both Relitivity and the Heisenberg principal have interested me for years.

William, What you fail to take into consideration is the element of thunder. Light from multiple points in space at such close range cannot be differentiated while sound can. This portion of the film did a poor job and showing the correlation with the change in pitch and the redshift effect BUT it is the end game that resulted in the phenomena in question. I can understand the confusion because if one was not previously familiar with the endgame, and that many are primarily visual and auditory is secondary the complete observation would be missed. Even the director may have failed pointing out the analogous relationship with change in pitch as to redshift. You are welcome to do the research your self!

What I would like to know the accuracy of the role Werner Karl Heisenberg played in the film. I'm not to sure his hands were as clean as the film makers have made them out to be. Von Braun went through a publicity scrubbing and I'm wondering has Heisenberg benefited in the same manner although through different means. Operation Paperclip cleaned a lot of the German/NAZI scientists' reputations so that they would be well integrated into American society. This is another one of those little facts that many would like to see go away.

No drew, Einsitein's thought experiment states that that train is moving at incredible velocity. The thing with his thought experiments is that thay were not workable in the real world, hence "thought" experiment. This particular one is not meant to explain wavelength shifts, but is an attempt at demonstrating special relativity. That is, the effect that velocity has on time and distance.

The Dopppler effect was well understood at the time Einstein proposed this experiemnt in 1905, I believe. The Doppler effect was first proposed by Christian Doppler in 1842 and confirmed by Buys Ballot in 1845. The wave theory of light was first proposed by Fresnel in 1815. Demonstration of the Doppler effect on either he thunder(sound) or the lightning(light) would not have been earth shattering or controversial in Einstein's time, They were accepted scientific proncipals. Special relativity challenged the scientif belief that time and distance were constants. The train and lightning experiment demonstrates the relativistic nature of simultaneity.

Einstein could have used any two events, the fact that he used lightning (with no mention of the thunder, by the way) was arbitrary. He just needed events that seemed instantaneous to make his point.

From Wiki:The earliest occurrence of the term "red-shift" in print (in this hyphenated form) appears to be by American astronomer Walter S. Adams in 1908, in which he mentions "Two methods of investigating that nature of the nebular red-shift".[11] The word does not appear unhyphenated until about 1934 by Willem de Sitter, perhaps indicating that up to that point its German equivalent, Rotverschiebung, was more commonly used.


Special relativity is a theory of the structure of spacetime. It was introduced in Einstein's 1905 paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" (for the contributions of many other physicists see History of special relativity).

Yes, the Sound aspect of wave shift understood in 1905, the change in pitch is analogous to the redshift discovered in 1908. Einstein's Mind experiment reconciles the analogous relationship of waves of both light and sound. This is where redshift shows light acts a a wave and can be compressed just like sound. Redshift theory published in 1908 reflecting Einstein's special relativity theory.
Like I said, Methink this wasn't well expressed by the film makers. Non the less, it was the analogy Einstein alluded to. He saw light as waves being compressed. the Thunder in front of the train as a high pitch, the Thunder in back of the train as low pitch. the Thunder from the ground, same pitch.

see:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift

William, The film makers got it wrong.
Here is the actual thought experiment.

The difference is there is only ONE Light!
This changes everything. With the single light, I agree with what you say. With two lights, we are looking at the obvious detectable differential and that would be pitch between thunder.



wkki;
A popular picture for understanding this idea is provided by a thought experiment consisting of one observer midway inside a speeding traincar and another observer standing on a platform as the train moves past. It is similar to thought experiments suggested by Daniel Frost Comstock in 1910[1] and Einstein in 1917.[2][3]

A flash of light is given off at the center of the traincar just as the two observers pass each other. The observer on board the train sees the front and back of the traincar at fixed distances from the source of light and as such, according to this observer, the light will reach the front and back of the traincar at the same time.

The observer standing on the platform, on the other hand, sees the rear of the traincar moving (catching up) toward the point at which the flash was given off and the front of the traincar moving away from it. As the speed of light is finite and the same in all directions for all observers, the light headed for the back of the train will have less distance to cover than the light headed for the front. Thus, the flashes of light will strike the ends of the traincar at different times.

Ref:;
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity

It's not just because the series is 10 hours long - it's that such a movie would never make money in this day and age. But then, I wonder if each episode is actually an hour long - if you took out the commercials.

Strangely enough, I found that the commercials in this series didn't bother me as much as they do on network tv (which I can't even watch any more, such drivel imho). These at least were mainly National Geographic related and showed other upcoming productions, which I probably wouldn't have known about. I tried to watch something on network TV recently, and I counted 18 commercials back-to-back every five minutes, and that is appalling!

Thanks for the scientific stuff in this thread! I'm gonna have to read that, not saying I'll understand it, but will try.

There were very few commercials...some episodes only had one

Patricia, I found your scientific inquiries quite productive. I wonder if Ron Howard realize this little faux pas. I did locate what I think was his source.

You're kind of making me wish I watched tv now. We've been getting Netflix for a couple of years and the good movies/series are getting harder and harder to come by.