Rough short script for E=mc². MUST refer to ‘Analogies for Special Relativity’ throughout.

Tez Asfaw

FADE UP: A ten year old girl, LISA, stands in the wings, waiting to take the stage. From her POV we see a large crowd listening to another child’s presentation on flowers. Lisa stands by her gadgets and illustrations, a basketball and a trolley.		FADE UP: The large crowd can be heard oohing and aahing the child’s presentation. This is interspersed with rounds of applause. OLD GERMAN (O.C.): So what will your presentation be on, Lisa? LISA: Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity. OLD GERMAN (O.C.): Wow! That’s a little complicated, isn’t it? LISA: Not really. It’s quite simple actually. OLD GERMAN (O.C.): How do you intend to do that? LISA: By using simple examples and almost-examples. OLD GERMAN (O.C.): What are – ah, I think you mean analogies, yes? Still, I think you’ve chosen a difficult subject. LISA: It’s simple. First I’ll tell them that the universe is full of different frames of reference – OLD GERMAN (O.C.): What’s a frame of reference.
We see the analogy of Country Girl/City Girl. Visually we are introduced to their daily lives, then we watch as Country Girl learns about the city life. Lisa standing in the wings. We are in the space and cartoon cubes section off a part of space. This is an extremely elaborate presentation of space with practically every tiny thing enclosed in a suitably sized cube. Within each one is a planet or a spaceship or an astronaut out for a fly.	LISA: [Refers to Analogy of Country Girl and City Girl. Lisa’s narration over the visual events takes us through comparisons of their daily lives, through to Country Girl studying city life based on country sources, then discussing the violation of physical laws if country girl was to experience city life without having done any research into it at all.] OLD GERMAN (O.C.): Interesting. So what does this mean? LISA: It means that there is no universal way of looking at things. You are always looking at something either within the same frame as you are in a different frame. OLD GERMAN (O.C.): Why is this important to that famous theory? LISA: Well, mixed in with Einstein’s second idea that there is one thing that will always be the same no matter how you look at it or watch it from – whether you’re in the city or village – and the way we look at things become different. That’s the speed of light. OLD GERMAN (O.C.): What is that thing? LISA: The speed of light. [Optional: Lisa explains nature of light]
Example of Time Dilation is visualized. Lisa is now on stage and her presentation is well underway. She is about to go into the second analogy of Time Dilation. She’s standing on a flat trolley, bouncing a basketball. The trolley is still, so everyone sees the ball shoot straight down and back up again. She signals to the lighting box and all the lights die down. As one powerful light strobes, Lisa’s trolley is pushed along the stage. It looks as though, when bounced, the ball is traveling diagonally. Example of Length Contraction visualized Mass Increase At High Speed Analogy is visualized (two Glass ships). She refers to her drawing of SuperHero traveling near the speed of light. She refers to a picture of the sun and a person on the Earth being bathed in its light.	OLD GERMAN (O.C.): How does that change how we look at everything? LISA: [Example of Time Dilation] LISA: [Example of Length Contraction] Lisa uses the Mass Increase At High Speed Analogy] LISA: So for the phone to smash up, it’s mass must have increased. And that is how we have E=mc2. By traveling near to speeds of light do we realize that mass and energy are equivalent to each other. The speed of light is important because it is our effective speed limit, and nothing can go faster than that. If you think about it, everything we..
She covers the sun in her picture with a black piece of paper. The rays of the sun are still visible to the man on the Earth. Audiences claps unenthusiastically. Lisa clears up and the auditorium empties. We hear Old German walking away, Lisa looks up and watches him leave. We see the back of Old German’s head, it looks suspiciously familiar. He turns around… it’s Einstein!	LISA (cont.): …do is based on the speed of light. It actually takes 8 minutes for the sun’s rays to hit us here on Earth. That means, if the sun were to switch off now, we wouldn’t now about it for another 8 minutes. Even if we look up to the sky the sun will still be there, shining bright for all to see. LISA: Bring this all together and one of the main things about relativity is that all mass can be converted into energy. Even me, you, your cat. This is only noticeable when you move closer to the speed limit of the universe! Some clapping from the crowd. OLD GERMAN (O.C.): Well done. You managed to simplify and explain a theory non-scientists shy away from! LISA: I don’t think so. You were right, it was too complicated a presentation for a 10-year old. EINSTEIN: Oh, I don’t think I could have done it better myself!