Einstein: The Price of Thought

Einstein: The Price of Thought | Aby

All episodes

12 Episodes

1895
2 min. 5 sec.
A defiant, sixteen-year-old Albert Einstein attempts to forge his own path by taking the entrance examination for the Zurich Polytechnic without a high school diploma. Faced with institutional hurdles and the impending threat of military conscription, he takes drastic measures to sever ties with his homeland. Supported by his struggling father, Albert makes a fateful sacrifice to pursue his intellectual ambitions on his own terms.
1895
Aarau
2 min. 3 sec.
After finishing his preparatory schooling in Aarau, a young Albert Einstein enters the prestigious Zurich Polytechnic, where he forms crucial bonds with fellow students Mileva Marić and Marcel Grossmann. However, his rebellious attitude and disregard for academic authority put him at odds with his professors, threatening his future career in European academia upon graduation.
Aarau
Lieserl
2 min. 38 sec.
As a struggling Albert Einstein seeks academic employment and begins working at the Swiss patent office, he and Mileva Marić navigate the quiet personal sacrifices of an unacknowledged pregnancy and family disapproval. After marrying in Switzerland, the couple must confront distressing news regarding the fragile fate of the child they left behind in Serbia.
Lieserl
Third Class
2 min. 15 sec.
While working as an unassuming clerk at the Swiss Patent Office, Albert Einstein balances newlywed life with his late-night passion for theoretical physics. Supported by his wife Mileva and his close friend Michele Besso, he tirelessly grapples with the fundamental contradictions of time and light. A sudden revelation during an evening commute ultimately leads him toward a revolutionary breakthrough that will redefine modern science.
Third Class
Annus Mirabilis
2 min. 7 sec.
Working as an unassuming patent clerk in Bern, young Albert Einstein secretly drafts revolutionary physics papers between routine office tasks and quiet domestic life. Supported by his wife Mileva, he channels breakthroughs through violin music and relentless night work to challenge the scientific consensus. The episode culminates as he posts his completed theory to a prestigious journal, poised to alter the course of modern physics.
Annus Mirabilis
The 1912 Notebook
2 min. 3 sec.
Struggling to reconcile gravity with the laws of physics, Albert Einstein leaves the patent office to collaborate with mathematician Marcel Grossmann in Zurich. As the demanding work pushes their mathematical theories to the limit, an enticing academic offer from Berlin forces Einstein to choose between his scientific ambitions and his family.
The 1912 Notebook
Conditions
2 min. 8 sec.
As Albert Einstein pursues his breakthrough gravitational theories in 1914 Berlin, he presents his wife Mileva with a severe list of demands governing their domestic life. With Germany on the brink of war, the immense emotional strain pushes their fractured family toward a painful, definitive crossroads.
Conditions
November 1915
2 min. 29 sec.
Amid the isolation of wartime Berlin and mounting health issues, Albert Einstein races against mathematician David Hilbert to finalize the general theory of relativity. Pushing himself to the brink of physical collapse, he frantically reworks his mathematical framework in a bid to revolutionize humanity's understanding of the cosmos.
November 1915
Burlington House
3 min. 24 sec.
Following the dramatic confirmation of his theories in London, Albert Einstein is thrust into international celebrity while contending with fierce intellectual debates and difficult family struggles. As the political climate in Germany grows increasingly perilous, he must navigate personal tragedy and looming national danger.
Burlington House
Peconic
1 min. 40 sec.
After renouncing his German citizenship and enduring personal tragedy in America, Albert Einstein seeks quiet retreat on Peconic Bay. His peaceful seclusion is interrupted when fellow physicist Leó Szilárd arrives with urgent news about German atomic research. Einstein is soon compelled to make a momentous decision that will forever alter the course of modern history.
Peconic
Mercer Street
2 min. 27 sec.
Living in quiet seclusion in Princeton, Albert Einstein pursues his unified field theory while grappling with professional isolation and personal estrangement from his institutionalized son. As the scientific world moves on and global expectations press upon him, the aging physicist must confront the boundaries of his influence when an extraordinary offer arrives from abroad.
Mercer Street
Room 204
2 min. 35 sec.
In the final hours of his life at Princeton Hospital, Albert Einstein refuses surgery and relentlessly pursues a unified field theory from his bed. Surrounded by family and fading memories, he spends his remaining moments writing on yellow legal pads before leaving the world of physics forever. In the aftermath of his passing, an unauthorized act by the attending pathologist alters the fate of the great thinker's legacy.
Room 204

1895

Aarau

Lieserl

Third Class

Annus Mirabilis

The 1912 Notebook

Conditions

November 1915

Burlington House

Peconic

Mercer Street

Room 204