Einstein On The Strip
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educational films that feature (actors playing the role of) Albert Einstein, including
Einstein Revealed (1996, dir. Peter Jones, in a careful rendition by Andrew Sachs) and
Einstein’s Big Idea (2005, dir. Gary Johnstone, narrated John Lithgow, with Aidan
McArdle as AE, based on David Bodanis’s book E = mc2; a Biography o f the World’s
Most Famous Equation [New York: Walker, 2005]; both prod, by NOVA for PBS).
Einstein isn’t mentioned in What the Bleep Do We Know? (dir. William Amtz, Betty
Chasse, Mark Vicente), a 2004 documentary about quantum mechanics, which the film
calls “the physics of possibilities.” But since Einstein did more than anyone to call
attention to quanta, even while opposing the implications of his own work, this is a major
and inexcusable omission: not the least of the film’s own failure to exploit the very
possibilities it raises. Yet in his absence, Einstein is like a God who isn’t dead, just
waiting to be resurrected, if not by causality (locality, separability) then by what he called
“spooky action at a distance,” which looms over the quantum world, courtesy of J.S.
Bell’s theorem. Thanks to John Cage, quantum weirdness (as it’s called) begot aleatoric
music; thanks to Iannis Xenakis, chance begot choice, overthrowing Beethoven’s “es
muss sein” to create imperatives leading directly to Philip Glass’s messianic minimalism,
so eerily reminiscent of J.S. Bach. [The two best recordings of Einstein on the Beach are
those made by CBS, 1979 and Elektra, 1993; both feature Glass’s ensemble, conducted
by Michael Riesman. Robert Wilson wrote the libretto and choreographed the opera.]
From the foregoing list, it’s obvious that Einstein(iana) has an unlimited future—or an
uncountably infinite set of possibilities!