E=mc2
Einstein Documentary
First Brainstorm
Hello Kevin,
After I left the
interview I went to buy the book E=mc2 and I read it completely,
including the Notes and the Guide to Further Reading. Below is my first brainstorm
on the subject and what I think. I have other interesting books about Einstein
that I am going to read (Relativity and The Meaning of Relativity by Einstein,
Einstein by Peter D. Smith and Time Travel in Einstein Universe by J. Richard Gott).
First Feedback after reading the book
The book reads very
well, it is as I suspected like a novel but set in the world of science. So
Faraday, instead of finding the girl of his dream and stealing her from his
mentor Sir Humphry Davy, goes beyond the research of
Davy and discovers Energy. The consequences are a bit like if he had stolen
Davy's potential girlfriend or fiancée as the rest of the story is about hate,
jealousy and back stabbing.
In fact, most of the
book is a story about back stabbing and betrayals in the world of science. You
read this and you feel how horrible this universe must be and you do not wish
to be there with them competing to find a theory of relativity that works and
can be proven, or understand how the Uranium nucleus can be hit by neutrons and
earn your Nobel Prize.
When comes the time of
the Second World War story and the race to get the atomic bomb to explode, it
is like the concrete expression of that hate and competition between the
scientists of the world. It does not even appear to concern politics or
countries, but only the world of scientists: the rejected ones against the ones
in power that have all the credibility sometimes for the wrong reasons. I am
surprised the bombs were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
I feel it might have been more appropriate just over Leipzig and Los Alamos,
which were probably the real intended targets the scientists had in mind in
order to wipe themselves out of existence and get the credit and prizes that
would come with it.
Anyway, no scientists
are better than the others, even though some of them showed a conscience, it
still did not stop them from building the bomb and kill thousands of people.
The justification is that it was a necessary evil and perhaps it was true, who
knows the state the world would be in today without those two bombs being
dropped even though the intelligence at the time was saying that it was not
necessary to drop those bombs. Japan had already lost the war since the allies
had already burned 58 main cities with napalm and gas (and with the radiation
from the sun to light it up, who needed an atomic bomb
anyway?). Of course, it brought that sort of balance of power, but ultimately
it could bring our entire destruction.
The book is as much
about these tensions, competition and wars than it is about the biography of
the equation. And if a very simple book without all the drama had been written
about the biography of the famous equation E=mc2, I don't believe
your producers would have bought the rights of the book as it would have had no
interest in gripping people to their chairs.
I think you should not
be doing a documentary about E=mc2 but instead a story about this
war of Egos ready to reject to truth to save their reputation. Science has
always been an ugly world, narcissism appears to be
the law governing it. Everyone is working independently and only releasing bits
of their discoveries when they feel there is nothing left to be discovered and
that their Nobel Prize is guaranteed, a sure way to discover nothing without
the sharing of information. It has not changed today, only when a virus like SARS, as strong and dangerous for the whole
population of the Earth, we do see some sort of cooperation between the
researchers of the world. This is what needs to be denounced in the
documentary.
Perhaps we should
forget about the fact that some lunatics believe that the equation E=mc2
may be wrong but I would at least say at the end that Einstein was working into
finding another revolutionary equation that is the Theory of Everything (TOE),
in order to link up the equations of Quantum Physics (the world of the very
small, the atomic world) with the ones of Relativity (the world of the very
large, the stars and the planets). And this new equation he was looking for
might have replaced E=mc2 and still might in the future.
One day we might
understand everything there is to know about physics and maths, once that
elegant and simple equation is found. Superstring theorists might be the
closest to that solution or they may be very far still, we just don't know.
Einstein died before finding out that unified field theory and it might take us
another century before we find it. This is the price to pay for not having any
more genius mind around, it takes years to get to the truth with many normal
scientists finding bits and pieces of the truth over time as long as they work
together and share information. No one appears able, as Einstein and Newton
did, to suddenly make sense of it all in one time swoop by seeing the global
picture.
I think the book is very well separated in parts and the
documentary could follow the same path with screens telling you where you are:
E, =, m, c, 2, Germany, Norway, America, Japan, and then everything
gets mixed up and you go from Germany, to America to Norway and back, and it
all ends over Japan. Important parts should also be what else Einstein did and
the other technology that came out of E=mc2 as a note of hope that
it was not only destruction: computer chips, the Internet, traditional
television screens and GPS - global positioning system. E=mc2 was
necessary to calculate the Energy needed in order to get the electrons to do
what we wanted them to do and to adjust for the time difference when dealing
with particles, radio waves and light waves suffering time dilation as they
race at the speed of light. So I would not separate myself too much from the
book for the documentary.
Of course, beyond putting the emphasis on the warlike and
narcissistic attitude of the scientists, there may be yet a way to turn an
ordinary documentary into something special, something that has not been done
by Channel 4 and BBC main science series. At the very least you cannot do less
than them and you will need to watch them to see the level of technology that
went into visualising what they talk about. And there would be no point in
doing a documentary about energy, mass, the speed of light, the Uranium
breakdown and atomic bomb without showing nice images of all of this to help
represents in the mind of the viewers what it is all about. That is the
advantage and main reason to go beyond the book into a cinema screen. I also
think that "E=mc2" as the title with the subtitle
"The World's most famous Equation" are very effective to make it
sound better and different from other science series.
Cool dramatic music, good writing and again a star as the voice
over would also do it. The BBC for "The Planets" got Samuel West as
the narrator. Perhaps Catherine Diaz could be the narrator this time since the
book has been written because she said in an interview she wanted to understand
what E=mc2 meant. It would be a nice poetic justice to get her to do
the voice over. And of course, try to get Stephen Hawking,
I am sure he would want to be part of this.
On the back of The Planets it says: "Employing state of the
art computer graphics, unseen space race archive and testimony from leading
scientists. The Planets is the most comprehensive and spectacular account of
space exploration and discovery ever made." From this I can add that you
would need those state of the art images of the science involved, unseen
footage if possible of the war, and great reconstructions of the events. Also
testimonies from the scientists involved who are still alive today. It was
about the right time for the documentary as most of those scientists are dead
from radiation poisoning and the survivors must be very old. I have seen a
documentary about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the pilot who dropped one of the
bombs is still alive and well, still part of the4 US army I believe, and he
went back to where he dropped the bomb to tell us that he did not feel bad for
what he had done and he would do it again.
That guy could be found along with some other important scientists
involved.
Last minute idea: I know how you will get another Oscar for this.
Your narrator will be a kid, a sad and serious one, with a dramatic tone,
almost like if he was passing judgement on it all especially when comes the
time for dropping the bomb and explain the technicality of it. Also it will be
a great test, if it is too complicated for him to tell it, then it is too
complicated for your audience. And I know just the kid, the one that does one
of the Orange Mobile Phone commercials. You can see his picture on their main
website and publicity boards around London:
His photo: http://web.orange.co.uk/
The commercial:
http://www.creativeclub.co.uk/(ba0sm2y22ps11bvi0ceecnz3)/prelogin/mg.aspx?m=tv&r=211828&ref=
If that last link does not work when clicking on it, copy it
into your browser.
Otherwise, either Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe)
or his girlfriend Hermione Granger (Emma Watson II on IMDB) would do very
nicely. Emma Watson sounds just like a genius precocious kid and she is
charming and lovable. Having the story told by a child that sounds like he or
she is very intelligent, like a potential Einstein or genius, will bring the
gravity, the objectiveness and the innocence of it all. It has never been done
before and will distinguish you completely from what the BBC and Channel 4 did.
It will win the heart of everyone who will watch it. I would show him or her speak
in front of the actors, like they used to do sometimes in plays. You have a
narrator in front of the stage explaining what is going on while it is going
on. I know you might reject this idea, but think about it and watch TV for that
commercial where you see the kid explaining the new deals of Orange in front of
a chalk board. Or watch Harry Potter again and I think you will understand the
potential the documentary could have with one of them. If you can afford it,
the three kids from Harry Potter would be great, the last one being Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley.
Let's keep this British as the whole history of science has been
developed mainly in the UK (and France and Germany). That point about the US
being very late in the course of research for science and today stealing the
best brains from around the world with great money package should also be
addressed clearly in the documentary as this is important. Any country that
values science can afford the best brains in the market, only if they value it.
I will stop here before you tell me that what I am saying is
obvious and you already thought of all that. I hope you did as I know you are
very good at what you do. Let's just say that this was only a first feedback
and if you hire me I can come up with much better in the details as we go
along.
I am sending a second email about basic information that you might
need to know about Physics before jumping in this documentary.
I would be pleased to meet again to do more brainstorming sessions.
Regards,
Roland Michel Tremblay
44E The Grove, Isleworth,
Middlesex, London, TW7 4JF
Tel: +44 (0)20 8847 5586 Mobile: +44 (0)794 127 1010