E = MC 2 explained

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Einsteins Brains.

It's difficult to separate the enormous legacy of E = mc2 from Einstein's legacy as a whole. After all, the equation grew directly out of Einstein's work on special relativity, which is a subset of what most consider his greatest achievement, the theory of general relativity. Perhaps the equation's most far-reaching legacy is that it provides the key to understanding the most basic natural processes of the universe, from microscopic radioactivity to the big bang itself. Radioactivity is E = mc2 in miniature. Einstein himself suspected this even as he devised the equation. In the 1905 paper in which he introduced E = mc2 to the world, he suggested that it might be possible to test his theory about the equation using radium, an ounce of which, as Marie Curie had discovered not long before, continuously emits 4,000 calories of heat per hour. Einstein believed that radium was constantly converting part of its mass to energy exactly as his equation specified. He was eventually proved right. Today we know radioactivity to be a property possessed by some unstable elements, such as uranium, or isotopes, such as carbon 14, of spontaneously emitting energetic particles as their atomic nuclei disintegrate. They are metamorphosing mass into energy in direct accordance with Einstein's equation. We take advantage of that realization today in many technologies. PET scans and similar diagnostics used in hospitals, for example, make use of E = mc2. "Whenever you use a radioactive substance to illuminate processes in the human body, you're paying direct homage to Einstein's insight," says Sylvester James Gates, a physicist at the University of Maryland. Many everyday devices, from smoke detectors to exit signs, also host an ongoing, invisible fireworks of E = mc2 transformations. Radiocarbon dating, which archeologists use to date ancient material, is yet another application of the formula. "The decay products that we see in carbon dating�that energy is directly obtained from the missing mass that you see in E = mc2," Gates says.

How would 10 top physicists two Nobel Prize winners among them describe Einstein's equation to curious non-physicists?

 

 

Nima Arkani-Hamed
 Theoretical Physicist
Harvard University
 "Things that seem incredibly different can really be manifestations of the same underlying phenomena."

 

Janet Conrad
 Experimental Physicist
 Columbia University
 "For me there's a lot more to the equation than E = mc2."

Sheldon Glashow
 Theoretical Physicist and Nobel Laureate
 Boston University
 "When an object emits light, say, a flashlight, it gets lighter."

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Brian Greene
 Theoretical Physicist
 Columbia University
 "It certainly is not an equation that reveals all its subtlety in the few symbols that it takes to write down."

Alan Guth
 Theoretical Physicist
 MIT
 "It's easiest to explain by how things looked from the point of view of Newton."

 

Tim Halpin-Healy
 Theoretical Physicist
 Barnard College, Columbia University
 "Moving clocks run slow, moving meter sticks are shortened�how does that happen?"

 

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Lene Hau
 Experimental Physicist
 Harvard University
 "You can get access to parts of nature you have never been able to get access to before."

Michio Kaku
 Theoretical Physicist
 City University of New York
 "E = mc2 is the secret of the stars."

 

Neil deGrasse Tyson
 Astrophysicist
 American Museum of Natural History
 "It's something that doesn't happen in your kitchen or in everyday life."

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Frank Wilczek
 Theoretical Physicist and Nobel Laureate
 MIT
 "Ninety-five percent of the mass of matter as we know it comes from energy."

 

    

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About Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born American physicist and Nobel laureate, best known as the creator of the special and general theories of relativity and for his bold hypothesis concerning the particle nature of light. He is perhaps the most well-known scientist of the 20th century. Einstein was born in Ulm on March 14, 1879, and spent his youth in Munich, where his family owned a small shop that manufactured electric machinery. He did not talk until the age of three, but even as a youth he showed a brilliant curiosity about nature and an ability to understand difficult mathematical concepts. At the age of 12 he taught himself Euclidean geometry. Einstein hated the dull regimentation and unimaginative spirit of school in Munich. When repeated business failure led the family to leave Germany for Milan, Italy, Einstein, who was then 15 years old, used the opportunity to withdraw from the school. He spent a year with his parents in Milan, and when it became clear that he would have to make his own way in the world, he finished secondary school in Aarau, Switzerland, and entered the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich. Einstein did not enjoy the methods of instruction there. He often cut classes and used the time to study physics on his own or to play his beloved violin. He passed his examinations and graduated in 1900 by studying the notes of a classmate. His professors did not think highly of him and would not recommend him for a university position. For two years Einstein worked as a tutor and substitute teacher. In 1902 he secured a position as an examiner in the Swiss patent office in Bern. In 1903 he married Mileva Marić, who had been his classmate at the polytechnic. They had two sons but eventually divorced. Einstein later remarried.

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