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From Wondery, I'm David Schwartzbaum, and this is Who's Amazing Life.
You've heard of people who changed the course of history, but before they made their mark on the world, they were people like you and me still figuring out what they wanted to do with their lives.
On this episode, you will be that person everyone knows.
You might be a musician. or an athlete, a scientist, or a painter.
You may know what the person accomplished later in life, but now you can experience everything they faced along the way, from challenges and heartbreak to triumphs and excitement all the moments that built this person into someone who would change the world.
There will be clues, so pay attention.
But only at the end will you find out who you are.
So sit back and imagine your amazing life as The Questioner.
Imagine you're an intergalactic traveler riding on a beam of light as it whizzes through outer space.
Stars and planets zip by in a blur.
Other light beams hurtle along beside you, barking up and down like waves on the ocean.
Up ahead, you see a tiny glowing ball in the distance.
It's your home planet, Earth.
And soon, it grows to enormous size.
You're headed straight for it, moving so fast you can't swerve out of the way.
You strike the Earth's atmosphere, but you don't crash.
You don't even slow down.
You cling to your light beam as it bounces off particles in the clouds, off the leaves of the trees, the sides of buildings.
You get dizzy.
You can't hang on much longer.
Does it ever slow down?
Nope.
The familiar voice brings you back to real life.
You're 12 years old in your cozy living room with your science tutor, Max.
You can't actually ride on a light beam, but it's fun to imagine it.
Your tutor reads from the physics book that's open on the coffee table.
The speed of light is always 671 million miles per hour.
Wow.
It's the fastest thing in the universe.
Amazing, isn't it?
You nod, but something still puzzles you.
But this says that light moves in waves.
How can that be?
You look at the lamp in the corner of your living room.
When you turn it on, light seems to just appear.
You don't see any waves.
Max smiles.
Great question.
But trust me, the light waves are there.
They're just too small to see.
The idea fascinates you.
You ask him how anything could move so fast.
How do we know the speed of light anyway?
And if you could see a light wave, would it look like the glowing beam you were just riding in your imagination, or something else?
Then suddenly, you stop yourself.
Uh, sorry, am I asking too many questions?
You're used to getting in trouble for being curious.
Your middle school is run like a strict military academy and your teachers expect you to sit still, be quiet and memorize whatever they write on the board.
Earlier today, your math teacher kicked you out of class.
He said your questions were a distraction.
But you can tell from Max's surprised expression that he's not mad at you.
Too many questions?
There's no such thing.
If you want to understand something as mysterious as a wave of light, you have to ask questions.
Okay.
You breathe a sigh of relief, and almost immediately, more questions crowd into your mind.
If we can't see light waves because they're so small, couldn't we see them through a microscope?
Maybe scientists just need to build a stronger microscope.
It's dinner time.
Finish up with Max.
You deflate a little.
Dinner means your time with Max is up.
He closes the physics book.
That's an interesting idea.
Let's get into it next time.
You wish Max could stay longer.
You wish you could study like this at school, asking questions and trying to figure out the answers with a teacher who seems as curious as you are.
Still, you do understand light a bit better now, and that's what you want most of all to feel one step closer to understanding the mysterious world around you.
You continue studying on your own and with your tutor in the evenings.
And when you're 16, you enter the Zurich Polytechnic, a college in Switzerland with a physics program.
In college, you get to study all the mysterious, invisible forces that make the world work.
Things like light waves, magnetism, gravity, and electricity.
If you still struggle to follow the rules of a strict academic institution.
Sometimes you get so caught up in your own research you forget to attend your actual classes.
But you manage to graduate and you look forward to getting a job as a physics professor.
You'll get to share your love of science with your students and you'll keep studying, asking questions and deepening your understanding of the invisible forces at work in the universe.
The summer after graduation, you write to one of your college professors, the head of the physics department, and asked to be his teaching assistant the following year.
You're more than qualified for the position, but days pass, then weeks, then a month, and you don't hear anything back.
You're determined to get this job.
It would officially make you a scientist.
If this professor isn't going to answer your letter, it's time to take matters into your own hands.
You make an appointment to see him in person.
You're 21 years old, sitting outside the office of the head of the physics department at the Zurich Polytechnic.
You've been here before as a student, of course, but it feels different to be here as a graduate applying for your first real job as a scientist.
You run a hand through your thick, curly hair.
You probably should have combed it, but you always forget.
You watch the minutes tick by on the clock in the waiting room and tap your foot impatiently.
You can't wait to get to work.
Finally, your professor opens the door and you leap to your feet.
But instead of reaching out to shake your hand, he just stares at you.
What are you doing here?
You graduated.
You should be long gone from this place.
I thought I was meeting with a job applicant.
You are.
Good afternoon, professor.
I'd be honored to be your assistant for the next school year.
He doesn't reply.
He's still staring.
You grasp for something to say to fill the silence.
Maybe you didn't get my letter.
I wrote to tell you about the job.
I got your letter.
I thought it was some kind of joke.
You skipped several of my lectures when you were a student.
Your smile fades and you feel a little queasy.
You did miss some of your professor's classes, but only when you were so busy studying on your own that you lost track of time.
You didn't think he would be so angry about it.
And when you were in class, you did nothing but pester me with rude questions.
Rude?
I didn't mean to be rude.
You suggested multiple times that I'd made mistakes in my calculations.
But professor, there were mistakes in your calculations.
His eyes go wide and you stop yourself.
You need this job.
If you want him to hire you, you should try to win him over.
You should apologize.
But how can you be sorry for telling the truth?
You take a deep breath and speak calmly.
Sir, I only questioned you because I want to get to the truth.
I want to help you make discoveries about the world.
I want to understand it.
The professor shakes his head.
How dare you come into my office, insult my work, and then ask for a job?
I didn't mean to insult you, I just You trail off as he turns on his heel, stomps back into his office and slams the door.
Bang!
You wander into the hallway, feeling stunned.
Students rush past you.
Another professor you used to know steps out of his office, but you're too embarrassed to say hello.
What now?
You're more passionate about physics than ever.
You believe it is the only way you can understand the mysteries of the universe.
But if your own school won't hire you to teach it and study it, who will?
Months pass, and you write dozens of letters asking for work.
You contact every math and science professor you've ever had.
None of them will hire you.
They say you have a reputation for being difficult, for not showing senior scientists the proper respect.
You move back home with your parents and try teaching high school, but you can only get occasional temporary jobs.
In your spare time, you explore new ideas in physics with your friends from college.
Working with them is fun and rewarding, but you still need a real job.
One that pays real money.
Finally, one of your friends helps you get a paid position as a clerk at a patent office where you review other people's applications for new inventions.
Every day, you finish your assigned tasks in a.
You're dashing up a flight of stairs, clutching a pile of papers in one hand and using the other to grab onto the railing whenever you lose your balance.
You're 26 years old.
And the sooner you turn in your patent reports, the sooner you can get back to physics.
You jog down the third floor hallway and into your boss's office.
Here you go, sir.
Your boss looks up from his desk.
You're done already?
You nod.
He takes your stack of papers and flips through them.
Impressed.
Great work.
I've never seen a patent clerk get through reports this fast.
You can go home early if you like.
Thanks, but I think I'll stay.
I'm just, um, thinking through something.
Your boss shrugs and waves you on, and you spin out of his office and jog back to the stairs.
You take them even faster this time, leaning on the railing to slide down the last half-flight without touching the ground.
You trot back to your desk to pull out the physics notes you keep stuffed in every drawer.
For months, your mind has been full of questions about the way light moves through space.
You've been interested in light waves since you were a kid.
But recently, you read about a phenomenon that you don't understand.
Other scientists have shown that shining light on certain types of metal causes tiny particles, too small for the eye to see, to fly up into the air.
You picture a baseball landing in a sandbox and the tiny bits of sand that fly up around it when it lands.
The phenomenon is called the photoelectric effect, and something about it bothers you.
You can describe it, but you don't really get it.
Light travels in waves, and waves don't act like baseballs.
How does the photoelectric effect work?
What does the light do to the metal when it reaches the surface?
You're dying to find out.
You close your eyes and imagine a light wave inside your mind.
You jump aboard the wave and ride it through space.
You speed toward a sheet of metal.
The world blurs around you as you accelerate to 671 million miles per hour.
But when you look down, you see something unexpected.
It's not a wave!
You appear to be riding on top of a brilliant glowing ball.
It pings off the metal sheet, sending a flurry of metal pieces into the air and sending you bouncing back into space.
You tumble off your light beam and fly alongside it.
Now you can see that it's made up of millions of twinkling spheres.
Tiny, glowing packets of energy.
They bounce off the metal like baseballs, knocking more particles into the air.
Light isn't just a wave.
It's particles, too.
You open your eyes, amazed by what you just realized.
For decades, scientists have believed that light travels like any other wave moving through a substance, the way ocean waves move through water.
But now you're convinced that light is more than that.
It travels in tiny particles of energy that we can't see, zooming through the air like glittering baseballs.
That's it.
It has to be.
You're so excited you say it right out loud in the office.
But by now your co-workers are used to seeing you huddled over your equations and muttering to yourself.
Nobody even bothers to look up.
They don't have any idea that you're on the cusp of a gigantic discovery.
You hunch back over your desk and start writing.
The work has just begun.
You have to calculate the physics equations that will prove what you've just discovered.
You have to write a scientific paper about it and get it published in a professional journal.
You have to convince other scientists to work with you to prove your theory.
In other words, you have a lot to do.
And there's plenty that can go wrong.
But you're not worried.
The journey to understanding the universe is a long one.
Today, you've made your first great discovery.
And you're just getting started.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Your conclusion that light exists as tiny particles called photons changes the world forever.
Future scientists use your discovery to build televisions, invent lasers, study outer space and understand nuclear energy.
Nine years after discovering the photon, you develop another revolutionary idea the general theory of relativity, which helps explain the movement of planets, the birth and death of stars and the creation of the universe.
In turn, in 1921, you receive the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Despite your newfound fame and success, you face discrimination because of your Jewish identity.
In 1933, while you're visiting the United States, the Nazis come to power in your home country of Germany.
You realize it's not safe to return.
You become a US citizen, continue your research at Princeton University and speak out against religious prejudice and violence.
Decades after your passing, you continue to inspire millions to explore the unknown, to ask impertinent questions and to seek to understand the mysteries of the universe.
You are Albert Einstein.
If you like, Whose Amazing Life.
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Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondry.com slash survey.
From Wondery, this is Who's Amazing Life.
This episode contains reenactments and dramatized details.
While we can't know exactly what was said, we use many sources when researching our stories.
Some that were particularly helpful include Einstein, His Life in Universe by Walter Isaacson and Albert Einstein, and Relativity for Kids by Jerome Pollan.
I'm your host, David Schwartzbaum.
This episode is written by Lizzie Prestel.
Sound design by Andre Plus.
Our audio engineer is Daniel Pashina.
Additional audio assistance is by Sergio Enriquez.
Desi Blaylock is our managing producer.
Our senior producers are Megan Begala, Ginny Bloom, and Jennifer Klein-Walker.
Executive producers are Marsha Louis and Erin O'Flaherty for Wondering.
