The great physicist was not the first to equate forms of mass to energy, nor did he definitively prove the relationship
By
Tony Rothman | Aug 18, 2015 (Scientific American)
JLGutierrez ©iStock.com
No
equation is more famous than
E = mc2, and few are simpler. Indeed, the immortal equation’s fame rests largely on that utter simplicity: the energy
E of a system is equal to its mass
m multiplied by
c2, the speed of light squared. The equation’s message is that the mass of a system measures its energy content. Yet
E = mc2 tells us something even more fundamental. If we think of
c, the speed of light, as one light year per year, the conversion factor
c2equals 1. That leaves us with
E = m. Energy and mass are the same.
According to scientific folklore,
Albert Einstein formulated
this equation in 1905 and, in a single blow, explained how energy can
be released in stars and nuclear explosions. This is a vast
oversimplification. Einstein was neither the first person to consider
the equivalence of mass and energy, nor did he actually prove it.
