Relatively Speaking

Guest: Werner Heisenberg

Albert explains time dilation to a general audience and argues that since time is relative, being 20 minutes late to work is a physics problem, not a discipline issue. He presents a formal letter template you can give your employer citing special relativity as an excuse for tardiness. HR has not accepted any of them.

The most famous equation in history, explained in terms of household energy costs. Albert calculates that if you could convert a single raisin to pure energy, you could power New York City for a week. He then spends 40 minutes upset that the power company won't let him try.

Guest: Niels Bohr (reluctantly)

Einstein rants about quantum entanglement for nearly two hours. He calls it "spooky action at a distance" fourteen separate times. Niels Bohr calls in to disagree. They argue for 45 minutes. Neither changes their mind. This has been happening since 1927.

Albert addresses the elephant in the room: his hair. He explains that he stopped combing it in 1905 — the same year he published four papers that changed physics forever. Coincidence? He thinks not. He argues that hair maintenance takes an average of 7 minutes per day, which is 42.6 hours per year, which is enough time to discover a new law of the universe. The audience is not convinced but cannot argue with the math.

Guest: Michele Besso

Albert reminisces about his time as a patent clerk in Bern, reviewing other people's inventions while secretly revolutionizing physics on the side. He reviews some of the patents he actually processed, including one for a particularly bad umbrella, and explains how looking at mediocre ideas all day motivated him to come up with good ones.

What if you rode a beam of light? What if you fell in an elevator forever? What if your twin flew away on a rocket and came back younger? Albert walks listeners through his greatest hits of imaginary scenarios that turned out to describe reality. He insists you do not need a lab. You need a chair and a willingness to annoy everyone around you with hypotheticals.

Guest: Leo Szilard

Albert discusses his famous letter to President Roosevelt warning about atomic energy, and reveals several other letters he wrote that received no response, including one suggesting the White House install better insulation and another proposing a national nap hour.

A deep dive into general relativity, presented as a story about gravity being the most underestimated force in the universe. Albert argues gravity is the "quiet kid in class who turns out to control the entire structure of spacetime." He bends a tablecloth to demonstrate and knocks over his microphone three times.

In 1952, Albert was offered the presidency of Israel. He turned it down. In this episode he explains why, which mostly comes down to the fact that he is a physicist, not a politician, and also he does not own a suit that fits properly. He pivots into a broader discussion about why scientists should advise governments but never run them.

Albert has been trying to unify gravity and electromagnetism into one theory for thirty years. This episode is three hours of him working through equations out loud, getting excited, then realizing it doesn't work, then starting over. The audience finds it strangely soothing. Several listeners report falling asleep and waking up smarter.

Guest: Max Planck (on piano)

Albert plays violin for the first half of the episode. He is not as good as he thinks he is. The second half is a lecture on how music and mathematics share the same underlying structure, which is fascinating, but the audience is still recovering from the violin.

Guest: Isaac Newton (via letter)

Albert answers listener questions including "Is time travel possible?" (theoretically yes), "Can you explain relativity to a five-year-old?" (he tries for 20 minutes and fails), and a passive-aggressive letter from Isaac Newton claiming Albert is "standing on my shoulders and has the audacity to rearrange the furniture."