What was Einstein’s most mind-blowing discovery? | Ask an astronomer | Michelle Thaller | Big Think

What was Einstein’s most mind-blowing discovery?
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NASA astronomer and science communicator Michelle Thaller explains that the real brilliance of Albert Einstein is that he was able to bridge ideas that appeared to others to be in different realms.
The thing Einstein is most famous for is the equation E=mc2. Thaller explains why that equation is so mind-blowing: Pure energy and matter are the same thing. That means, as humans, we are both made of matter and of pure energy, and as pure energy, we would not experience space or time.
"I think that, once we really understand this, we're going to be in for some very difficult truths to accept," says Thaller. "It may be that there is no space or time as we know it, really."
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MICHELLE THALLER:
Dr. Michelle Thaller is an astronomer who studies binary stars and the life cycles of stars. She is Assistant Director of Science Communication at NASA. She went to college at Harvard University, completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, Calif. then started working for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's (JPL) Spitzer Space Telescope. After a hugely successful mission, she moved on to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in the Washington D.C. area. In her off-hours often puts on about 30lbs of Elizabethan garb and performs intricate Renaissance dances. For more information, visit solarsystem.nasa.gov/people/1...
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TRANSCRIPT:
MICHELLE THALLER: If you were to convert my hand into pure energy using Einstein's equation you could have nuclear Armageddon on a global scale. There is so much mass in here that if you were to convert me into pure energy I could blow up the planet.
There are very few people in the world where I just simply say their name and you immediately can picture them, probably many different images of them, and one of them certainly is Einstein. I just say that word and all of a sudden you're thinking about crazy white hair and the mustache, somebody who is brilliant, you know, those wonderful unknowing eyes with lots of smile lines around them. Everybody knows who Einstein is and people understand that he was a very famous scientist, but I think that people often don't grasp the true depth and the profound nature of the things that Einstein introduced to us.
I also spend a lot of time debunking, in some ways, the myth of Albert Einstein. A lot of people seem to think that he was somebody that worked outside of traditional academics, he wasn't part of the academic establishment, he came up with all this brilliant stuff all by himself. Well, that wasn't true either. Einstein was a professor, he actually taught a lot at the University of Bern and also in Berlin and then eventually came to Princeton. He was very much a product of the time and the science that was going on. There were brilliant people at this time. Science was changing in so many different ways and for a lot of things Einstein found himself kind of in the right place at the right time to see two different things going on and say ah-ha, those things actually go together. And to me that really was some of the real brilliance of Einstein, was that he became a bridge between many, many different subject matters.
It amazes me that he was one of the people when he was doing his doctoral dissertation, who figured out the size and speed of molecules in the air all around you. People didn't realize at the time, when Einstein was a younger student in college, that air was made of molecules, little things that are constantly bouncing off each other and bouncing off of you and that's what we think of as air. And it became known that there was a tremendous number of these. To give you an idea, in about a square foot of air, if I had about a square foot of air of volume in front of me, how many molecules are in a square foot of air? The answer is approximately 10 to the 23, which means a one with 23 zeros after that. That's such a big number we don't have a name for it. And all of those molecules are bouncing off you at hundreds of miles an hour. Can you imagine when they realized that's what air really was? Einstein was a major figure in that and then there was so many other things he did.
But I think if I were to...
Read the full transcript at bigthink.com/videos/einstein-...

[@bigthink]

Hello Big Thinkers! According to you, what was Einstein's most mind-blowing discovery?

[@bartmannn6717]

Up until seeing this video, it was, that gravity is not a force per se, but the effect of objects moving in bent space. Bent. Space.

[@paulheinrich7645]

Does the fact that photons don’t experience time or distance help explain the results of the delayed choice quantum eraser experiments? And perhaps what we observe as the duality of light and its seemingly inexplicable quantum actions is understandable if we viewed and thought of the experiments from the perspective of the photon itself? Please continue to keep us thinking.

[@mikowhy9608]

I would say seeding an idea. Other than anyone else's, that didn't stay in his head but went ...viral? 😋 For example: What if I'd say there was no Big Bang! (As I used to to imagine it) And so all universe is a soup of ...photons, one next to each other. Each carrying an information of a current moment. So in order to learn what's in the next one - you need time. Reach further - a lot of time... 🤔 Cool 😉

[@daziggy1]

At the speed of light time ceases to exist. Speed is defined by distance traveled by time. So for the light this means no speed at all. ?

[@666thunderz]

His hairstyle?

[@shreykapoor1333]

She is the best thing that happened to this channel.

[@scis3385]

I only give likes to comments which are *true* and that's what I did to this comment

[@michaelblacktree]

If it weren't for Michelle, I wouldn't even watch this channel.

[@gabzpot]

No doubt.

[@marcymurraylikes]

Oh yes. Perfectly put!

[@ShaneSuen]

1000 yeses!

[@stezi5820]

Michelle needs her own podcast, she like the teacher i never had.

[@rikachiu]

Not even a global pandemic can bring her passion and enthusiasm for science down! I love her!

[@Herzankerkreuz67]

'Plandemic' ............

[@MeAndTheBoys_]

@@Herzankerkreuz67 Bible said it, and i believe it! Amen brother!

[@rikachiu]

@@variant101 Yeah GLOBAL. Remember when you 'LOL' that the vast majority of the world is laughing at you. Not the other way around.

[@yojiviriak675]

Parents and teachers, look, this is what teaching is. To inspire, to dazzle and to elevate. Absolutely amazing - Michelle Thaller

[@saloonnee]

Her explanation alone gives me chills.

[@seangrabowski9464]

More of Michelle!! This was amazing.

[@dethkatmetalbaby1867]

Your enthusiasm is infectious!

[@ehsansabaghian5617]

She is the best at explaining most complex things in a simple understandable ways.

[@ehsansabaghian5617]

@†ANGÉ|† 😆 Haha. I didn't know him, but I can see why you say that.

[@chrisnnh]

She makes it very clear, I simply don’t understand the most complex things.

[@Allanfallan]

It's so cool to hear her thoughts on time and how we experience life differently from photons. I've always held this understanding in my head that time is a construct of human perception and used as a tool. When I think about what time IS, I can't get past the idea that it wouldn't exist if nothing changed. If nothing changed in the entire universe and everything stopped, all the way down to the smallest piece, would time still exist? This makes me think of time as a measurement of change, and only "exists" because we can experience change in the first place. A photon doesn't experience time at all because it doesn't experience change. From it's perspective, it exists in a singular moment for it's whole life. It sees everything but experiences nothing.

[@Jillydisco]

Allanfallan good words

[@SimonSozzi7258]

Yes. Even if everything stopped moving...time would still exist. As long as light was still traveling at the speed of Causality.

[@mamooncoolboy]

What you’re referring to as change is the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics which states entropy always increases and that is why we feel change.

[@Allanfallan]

@@mamooncoolboy Yeah I agree that entropy is essentially why change happens, so I guess basically time is a result of experiencing entropy increasing. Although for the photon example, it doesn't "experience" entropy even though entropy is still effecting it because time doesn't pass for a photon. No matter how long it exists from an external observers point of view, from the point of view of the photon, it's "life" all happens at once. Hard to wrap my head around all of it.

[@booJay]

Michelle Thaller is right up there with some of the very best scientific communicators....ever.

[@sridharfc]

I have read countless books and seen hundreds of videos on Einstein's theories, but still the way Dr Thaller explained it blew my mind! Brilliant explanation. Thank you.

[@believeinpeace]

What a fascinating lecture. I could listen to her for hours.

[@ortinsuez2052]

Physics is perhaps the best thing that ever happened to mankind.

[@sanjursan]

Next to Mathematics, of course.

[@JJs_playground]

I wish Michelle and Brian Greene were my science teachers in highschool. maybe I would have gone into a career in physics or astrophysics.

[@WrayAnderson]

She explained complex stuff with such clarity and simplicity!

[@JAntonSaad]

This trip of knowledge was so amazing I almost cried. Thank you.

[@geoden]

For years I have liked Michelle Thaller. Her enthusiasm for science is infectious, her delight in it is written all over her face.

[@TimLuxter]

Just. The. Best. Michelle has become part of my bedtime routine. I ponder upon space and time while cleaning my teeth every night. Praise be to KZbin

[@abdo206]

your way in explaining complicated subjects are remarkable i wish i had a teacher like you when i was young

[@pucek365]

5:52 I finally got how these characters from DragonBall were able to destroy whole planets :O

[@potawatomi100]

Outstanding vlog Michelle and your narrative is superb. You are a great explainer and your passion is contagious.

[@mireilledavidson9427]

Thank you Michelle, it is always an absolute pleasure listening to you and learning something new. Thank you 🙏

[@devilsemissary4650]

She is brilliant. I love the way she explains things. She has such a passion for science.

[@adrianash3640]

More videos of Michelle, please. She is gold

[@debbiegraham1072]

Love your enthusiasm. Broke this down so I could understand. Lost me at the end but will revisit. Thanks

[@anieudo5359]

Debbie Graham haha 😆, same here.

[@johnreder8167]

Special relativity says that if you were to travel faster than a speed of light, time would go backwards. And therefore it's impossible because it would violate causality. And if you leave physics behind and just wanted to go in the future, you as a physical, solid state of mass can only exist at one point in spacetime. In theory, you would have to convert you entire being to pure energy and then convert back to mass/human. Same would go for teleport. I do not have any education in physics or math but my roommate is an astrophysicist. He has PhD but he too watches these videos haha

[@robinhannon3488]

@Big Think more Michelle please! She is awesome! 😍

[@harshsrivastava2609]

2:13 square foot? Air in a 2d space? I think cubic foot?

[@MrBej]

Nice catch!

[@harshsrivastava2609]

@@srinivasan3997 Yes we should be in her place. We're so talented.

[@jl_6996]

This woman is awesome! I know when I see her face show up on this Chanel, I am going to learn something and understand the lesson she gives! I give 5 thumbs up!

[@cofr3979]

Loved the video!!! Very interesting.

[@craigbuckley5898]

Thank you for explaining things in a way we can understand. That was brilliant and I feel I understand the connection between Mass and Energy a little for the first ever !!

[@edwin_ac]

I read Einstein autobiography. One thing that facinates me is this story where Einstein has an equation. And that equation results to an expanding universe. During that time, people believe that the universe is static. Thus, Einstein inserted a constant on his equation, so that it won't result to an expanding universe. It's not until he saw Edwin Hubble's telescope several years after, that indeed prove, that the universe is really expanding. The equation he thought to be wrong, was actually correct.

[@Flyanb]

Dr Thaller you are the reason I am still subscribed to BigThink. Wow! Now you’ve given me weeks of thoughts to try to process. Thank you very much.

[@chirilas5217]

Excellent and very complete explanation Dr. Thaller. I admire you since the first time I am seeing science programs, like How the Universe Works. You make us easy comprehend the most importants concepts of science, which it is not an easy task. But we try to grasp the best of your lessons. Congratulations.👏👏👏👏

[@electeng6481]

You can't stop. Great explainer

[@jefferyzielke7665]

I absolutely love her. So qualified and easy to listen to

[@USAneedsaChange]

This is one of the most epic clips I've ever heard even though it starts at a very simple, humane level. This really takes you aback and almost shocks you. She's fantastic, and so was Einstein of course, but even more so. Thank you Mr E!

[@havenbastion]

Michelle, the answer to any intractable problem, like physics, philosophy, economics, love, is a simplified understanding - a set of maxims or metaphors that lead to solutions. (answer - framework of understanding, solution - bespoke action plan, the purpose of all knowledge, wisdom, and understanding is actionable certainty). Change is the universal substrate of the universe and time, space, energy, matter, perspective, causality, momentum, mass, consciousness, reality, etc. can all be understood in relation to it. Δ is the kernel of the final ToE in physics. Bonus: I think the speed of light, expansion, dark matter, gravity and various other problems can be better understood as a thickening of some lower layer we'll discover next.

[@paulramirez632]

I just subscribed to this channel!!

[@AlexTube2006]

Thanks Dr Thaller for your clarity and easy way to break down complex aspects of science and explain it to a global audience. The same when you do the historic and philosophical analysis of Albert Einstein's scientific life and the philosophical implications about what reality is. What are your thoughts on the block spacetime universe, in which past, present, and future exist simultaneously?

[@oqvp]

Michelle is the kind of woman that I am proud of, the kind of girl that I tell my daughter to take as an example, the kind of friend that I would love to have, the kind of brain and soul that is unique, special, amazing and incredible, capable of changing people's lives with just a 10 minutes video on KZbin.

[@abhishekms1059]

I have thought of the same idea that light must don't experience space or time. And also i doubt why we mean something as energy because it just a transition from one particle to another. Light is always at speed of causality so as ordinary matter can't do that. we must consider there is something that differentiate light from other particle and also there must also have some different understanding for light. Look at Einstein postulated invariance of speed light wrt all the inertial frames. which on the basis of what he derived how observations must varies. still the light is out of box. while the Gravitational effect on light still implies space time effects lights path and it's energy. Thank you ma'am for this nice presentation even in this hard time. I will be great full with your suggestions.

[@anthonytamaccio9092]

WOW!!!!!! So often things such as this are presented with little explantation. This was explained more fully and with comprehensible logic. Thank you, MT.

[@lucianmihail584]

This woman is the best; i could listen her for all day long... she explains everything so simple and elegant, i want her more on this channel!!!!! Thank you, Michelle Thaller!

[@flyfree78644]

Michelle is a wonderful explainer. More Michelle!

[@abhi7281]

More Michelle please.

[@rickharold7884]

Awesome. Super fascinating

[@richardsimms251]

Another great video. Thank you. RS. Canada

[@AJSchnell]

Astounding video!

[@christopherchilton-smith6482]

10:45 All time affects all time all the time

[@isaacbernath]

Best explanation I've ever heard.. Been looking for this stuff for years

[@nplm947]

Very absorbing...very awakening....very revealing.. ..

[@ydarbg]

If we had her teaching on a global scale we'd be traveling through the universe by now... Legend 👏

[@parvejkumar4138]

Michelle you are great I am happy to see you when you're come back in discovery science

[@elpompo5166]

This explanation of reality is soul freedom. Thanks 😊

[@augustuslc]

"Far be it from me oh Lord, to think that you think like I think. Because if there was a mind so great that it knew all things that ever had been or are or ever shall be, surely, we would fall to silence in the face of such mind. But far be it from me oh Lord to think that you are such a mind, for that mind would think like I think. When I sing a song, I could remember what I sang, I know what I’m singing, and I anticipate what I would sing. But you oh Lord, you do not think in that way. For to you, all things simply are, and for you there’s neither today, no tomorrow, not yesterday; all simply is. And through your todays, pass all tomorrows and became all yesterdays. " St. Augustine

[@yourpersonaldatadealer2239]

Always love Michelle 🧠❤️

[@russellalvarez7587]

Amazing!

[@deborahlincoln-strange622]

I love her. She is so smart and explains complex concepts so simply.

[@kevinwhitcomb7420]

Love this

[@lynnac707]

My mind is blown for sure. Thank you!

[@CarlosMartinez-zf7vs]

This is Gold!

[@arorakanwaljitsingh2886]

Michelle Thaller, Amazing...simply amazing

[@Megadeadpeople]

I love the way she explains things. I’m a 32 year old carpenter - sure, I build things. These people are on a bother level of ability and *universal* knowledge. She’s amazing.

[@kangarool]

Michelle is just the greatest! Thank you

[@junkjunk2493]

omg ... well said ... really kool ... i got goose bumps ... gotta get more

[@gabzpot]

I love so much listening to Michelle.

[@farhaad77]

Michelle I am a big fan of yours , the way you explain these complex topics to an average Joe like myself its profound, I actually understand most of what you talked about , so thank you for that. I dont quite understand what time is? Is it a physical entity , does it have properties, What is the equation of time and speed. It slows down near speed of light, does it move faster if so then at what speed.

[@scottnorvell2955]

Fantastico!!!

[@altonmassson]

Simply astonishing...

[@ballymunjay]

Thank you.👍😷 No bullshit, clear, informative, all delivered with passion and enthusiasm.

[@milodillio6258]

Its hard to get your mind around a substance so infinitesimaly small. I mean how do you isolate a single particle? Not to mention the science it takes to then eccelerate that particle. Fascinating.

[@jagannathprasaddas7843]

THANK YOU

[@michaeldavidfigures9842]

What a brilliant lady!

[@katyarom]

Thank you, Michelle! It's really mind-blowing when you think about it.. Simple explanations reveal deep thoughts. It's what I like about your videos. Greetings from Russia.

[@akhilvijay8670]

Great explanation ever..Our teachers never explain in this way..

[@Bradgilliswhammyman]

Love this woman, brilliant, outspoken, champion of girls learning science and a very grounded astronomer. Been a fan of her since her appearance in How the Universe Works in 2010 or so.

[@elperku]

Just wow!

[@mrtransmogrify]

Excellent way of explaining things... I understand things the way she explained bt as I'm not a scientist, mathematician or physicist, i am not sure if im viewing it reasonably 'correctly'. Here, i found validation 🙂

[@rathanarn9587]

Very nice

[@anieudo5359]

You blow me away everytime.

[@kranjusfrankencop6263]

I have been watching Michelle Thaller on the science channel since i was little.

[@graemedurie9094]

Wow!

[@wparro6009]

Ya this speaker is bloody awesome cheers

[@patrickhurley7029]

And again- that whole idea of the past/present non-existing. It is a philosophy of science I’ve heard many times starting with Einstein- but no one has explained it in a way I could ever understand, until now- watch the end of this video and thank you again for bringing my understanding closer and closer to what scientists have been pondering for at least a century!

[@jaymis2375]

It literally feels like my brain just physically expanded, I’m about to become addicted to this channel

[@piisceon]

How can i contact michel for question

[@WhiteSpatula]

I was watching the movie “Contact” recently and I found my mind wandering off on a tangent (a common feature of the goo behind my eyes, I’ll confess) during a scene where, through some pretty nifty cinematography, the camera seems to slowly approach a bathroom mirror and then, instead of bouncing or turning upon reaching the glass surface, it seamlessly glides through it, making the sudden change in its trajectory appear to vanish. And I went on to wonder: From the (imaginary) vantage of a photon, would all travel seem similarly linear? In other words, would bouncing off of a surface seem to a photon as if the entire universe suddenly and instantaneously swiveled rather than itself? Cheers, Michelle, and thanks for all you do to enrich the goo behind human eyes. 😉 -Phill, Las Vegas

[@davidwolf7539]

this blew my mind

[@Rajeshkumar-hs4so]

Omg You blew my mind.

[@rightright6582]

Please redo this video with better sound and updated. She is great.

[@davidsalleyezonme1283]

I really like those space things

[@96kyh]

I'm struggling to understand all these deep ideas, but I have a feeling that what she's suggesting is closer to the truth of what reality is, when we truly and fully understand it.

[@Akionoseimei]

"What the see now is like a dim image in a mirror. Then the shall see face to face..." Profound!

[@sharank]

Wat?

[@mistermann4334]

Rodger that, brother.

[@KvaedTV]

My most mind-blowing discovery is that Honesty is the ultimate truth.

[@6Diego1Diego9]

she's always awesome

[@NinjaNuggets21]

Einstein would be proud of her simplifying and communication skills

[@BigNewGames]

Matter is energy at rest relative to the source of the energy, m=E/c², hence why I call matter standing waves.

[@patrickhurley7029]

I love her so much. Forget NGT( not really but he doesn’t explain things nearly as well)

[@MeAndTheBoys_]

I dont say this often but,...this blew my mind. Whoa 😱