Understanding the mind of Albert Einstein

‘Since I was a boy, I’ve always gravitated to stories of travel and parts of the world that I knew very little about when I was growing up,” said film producer and director Taran Davies. The US-born Davies, who grew up in London and Hong Kong, recently discussed his latest project, Einstein’s Incredible Universe, an IMAX film that he is producing.

IMAX film projection, which uses a giant screen on which an image approximately 10 times larger than standard is projected, is frequently used for documentary film projects that provide a higher-resolution and immersive experience. Davies has produced several IMAX films, such as the award-winning Journey to Mecca, a film that tells the story of the Hajj – the pilgrimage of Muslims to Mecca.

In 2013, he produced Jerusalem, a documentary about the city of Jerusalem presented through the eyes of three female teenagers – Jewish, Christian, and Muslim. During the film’s production, Davies met Rami Kleinmann, president and CEO of the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (CFHU).

The interest expressed by the CFHU team in creating a film about Einstein stemmed from the fact that Einstein was one of the founders of the Hebrew University, served on the university’s first Board of Governors and Academic Council, and delivered the university’s inaugural scientific lecture.

In April 1921, Einstein wrote, “I know of no public event which has given me such delight as the proposal to establish a Hebrew university in Jerusalem.”

Two years later, on April 1, 1925, the Hebrew University was officially dedicated in a makeshift amphitheater before an audience of several thousand distinguished Jewish leaders and dignitaries, which included the British high commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel; author and poet Chaim Nachman Bialik; and chief rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook. The guest speaker was Lord Arthur Balfour, author of the Balfour Declaration. This year, Hebrew University is celebrating its 100th anniversary.

Einstein, who died in 1955, bequeathed his literary estate and personal papers to the university. In 2026, construction of the Einstein House – designed by world-renowned architect Daniel Libeskind – will begin. Located on the Hebrew University’s Edmond J. Safra campus in Givat Ram, it will feature exhibits showcasing Einstein’s legacy, work, and research.

Davies Recalled his discussions with CFHU staff about making a film about Einstein. “We spent a lot of time in Israel with our friends at the Canadian Friends of Hebrew University of Jerusalem,” he said. They came to me and my team and said, ‘You’re making a movie about Jerusalem, which is all fine and well, but how about making a film about Albert Einstein?’

“I said, ‘How can we make a film about Albert Einstein on an IMAX screen? Here, you have someone who’s no longer alive. How do I make an immersive experience out of that?"

After giving the matter serious thought, Davies and his team devised a solution. “We put our minds to it, and we found a way,” he said. “It is very much a way that speaks to what an IMAX experience is all about, and in this case it’s journeying into Albert Einstein’s imagination.

“It’s about inspiring curiosity and showing this initial spark of curiosity that we all have at some point, usually when you’re a child. You see or experience something, and it changes your whole life and often puts you on a path for the work you end up doing.”

In Einstein’s case, the moment of inspiration was when his father gave the five-year-old Einstein a magnetic compass when he was sick in bed. The compass, with its mysterious magnetic forces, said Davies, mesmerized young Einstein and inspired him to search for meaning and understanding in the universe.

“We’re going to actually live Einstein,” Davies enthused. “We’re going to be Einstein. We’re going to go into the imagination of Einstein and investigate the seed of some of his greatest thought experiments.”

Beyond Einstein himself, the film tells the story of some of the people whom he inspired in the scientific world, such as two modern astrophysicists and their own stories of scientific exploration: Andrea Ghez, recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics and head of the Galactic Space Science Group at UCLA; and Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the MIT School of Science and professor in the university’s Physics Department.

Both were inspired by Einstein as young women, and today they are making cutting-edge discoveries that build on and challenge some of Einstein’s most radical theories.

The general goal of the film, Davies said, “is to inspire you to want to educate yourself – to have a desire to throw yourself into understanding how the world works. In particular, it’s a mission to inspire STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] learning and STEM careers.” Beyond that, noted Davies with a chuckle, “it’s my personal effort to finally truly understand what the general theory of relativity actually means.”

The film will also explore some of the personal aspects of Einstein’s life that shaped him, Davies said. “I think it will be an opportunity for audiences to get a better understanding of Einstein, the man – of the racism that he endured, the difficulties that he endured, and his advocacy for civil rights, and, of course, the fact that he was a Jew. I am hopeful that it will remind people of the incredibly positive impact that Jews have had, and continue to have, in all walks of life.”

Davies admitted that he knew little about Albert Einstein at the outset of his research. He said that the thing he found most interesting was that Einstein was just 26 years old in 1905 when he published the Theory of Special Relativity. The image that many people have of Einstein is of an older man with a shock of white hair, but he released perhaps his most impactful work when he was a young man.

If Einstein were alive today, what would he think of the film Einstein’s Incredible Universe? “I think he would get such a kick out of it,” said Davies, smiling.

He noted that one of the most extraordinary things about Einstein’s intellect was his ability to conduct thought experiments in his mind. “He was able to visualize putting himself into space before we knew what space looked like, and before the era of rocket ships.”

Similarly, he said, the IMAX medium is a means to give people an understanding and a view of the world that they have never experienced before. “There are astronauts flying today who say that they were inspired to become astronauts when as kids they saw an IMAX film about space.

“Einstein never had that opportunity, but he could visualize in his mind what it all looked like. He was able to visualize himself chasing a beam of light on a bicycle. One of his thought experiments featured in our film is: What would happen if you fell? Do you feel weightlessness when exploring gravity?

“Creating that experience in a film for IMAX and giant screen theaters is so exciting because this is a film that plunges into Einstein’s imagination at the pivotal moment of discovery.”

For Davies, making films has been about trying to understand the other and to create a better world through communication with the other. “Einstein’s Incredible Universe is about this spark of curiosity and switching on people’s imagination to show that we, in the laboratory of our mind, can do anything. We can solve all the problems that exist in the world, just like Albert Einstein solved all the problems that he put his mind to,” Davies asserted.

The film Einstein’s Incredible Universe is scheduled for release at the end of 2026.

This article was written in cooperation with the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University.