Acknowledging the scientists who blazed intellectual trails before him, Isaac Newton wrote, “If I have seen a little further it was by standing on the shoulders of giants.” In this special annual series, we invite our audience to stand on the shoulders of a modernday giant.

In 2015, we were honored to present an address by a titan of physics, Edward Witten. Professor Witten is a leading light of superstring theory and the only physicist to have won the vaunted Fields Medal, mathematics' highest honor. Known for advancing a number of novel approaches in mathematics and physics, Witten opened up new vistas in 1995 when he unified five seemingly competing superstring theories into Mtheory, which seeks to unify Einstein’s general theory of relativity with quantum mechanics.

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PARTICIPANT: Edward Witten
PROGRAM DATE: Saturday, May 30, 2015

Nature Rhymes. 00:00

Waves. 1:00

Progress from the 17th century 6:55

Kinetic energy and the distance from the sun. 11:58

Lagrangian mechanics 16:09

Richard Feynman contributions to physics 22:45

The world line of a particle. 28:00

Newton and Einstein working together. 37:03

What if string theory is correct? 44:44