Exactly 100 years ago, Albert Einstein grappled with the

implications of his revolutionary special theory of relativity and came to a

startling conclusion: mass and energy are one, related by the formula E = mc2.

In "Einstein's Big Idea," NOVA dramatizes the remarkable story behind this

equation.

E = mc2 was just one of several extraordinary breakthroughs

that Einstein made in 1905, including the completion of his special theory of

relativity, his identification of proof that atoms exist, and his explanation of

the nature of light, which would win him the Nobel Prize in Physics. To honor

the centenary of these achievements, 2005 has been declared the World Year of

Physics by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics.

Among

Einstein's ideas, E = mc2 is by far the most famous. Yet how many people know

what it really means? In a thought-provoking and engrossing docudrama, NOVA

illuminates this deceptively simple formula by unraveling the story of how it

came to be.

Based on David Bodanis's bestselling book E = mc2: A

Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation, the program explores the lives of

the men and women who helped develop the concepts behind each term in the

equation: E for energy; m for mass; c for the speed of light; and 2 for

"squared," the multiplication of one number by itself.