IFLScience: Still baffled by Einstein’s theory of relativity, or even the parts in the movie Interstellar when everyone experiences time differently? Well, this teenager’s explanation of special relativity even gives Carl Sagan a run for his money.

Ryan Chester, from North Royalton in Ohio, submitted his video for the Breakthrough Junior Challenge, which invites students aged 13-18 to share their passion for math and science with the world. The competition received over 2,000 applications from 86 countries. After being narrowed down to 15 finalists, Ryan managed to wrangle the prize and glory. Ryan wrote the script, filmed, edited, and created all the visual effects and motion graphics for this video.

Overall, he won $400,000 – $250,000 of which will go towards a scholarship, $50,000 to his teacher Richard Nestoff and $100,000 for his school to fund a science lab. Not bad!


YT: 110 years ago Albert Einstein published a theory that revolutionized the way we think about the universe. In this video I'll show you how to prove its two postulates using easy-to-understand real-world experiments, and how even the simplest understanding of quantum mechanics can be used to wrap your mind around why time must slow down the faster an object moves.

I wrote, filmed, edited, and created the visual effects and motion graphics for this video.