i know Albert Einstein but do not understand his famous theory (e=mc2) please can someone explain to me please. I want to be a quantum scientist and change the world so I need to understand his theory because it is the basis of quantum physics.
Responses (2)
The equation is a consequence of special relativity, which proposes that mass increases with velocity. The total energy of a moving object is the sum of it's relativistic mass and the kinetic energy of motion. If the velocity is zero, the energy is m*c*c. Scientists deduced from this that matter and energy were somehow equivalent. It was already known that small amounts of mass vanished during radioactive decay of heavy elements, and that radioactive elements were warmer than their surroundings. The equation gave a value for the energy released in this process. Realizing how much energy could be released if a lot of matter decayed in a short time period gave scientists the idea for the atomic bomb.