Tried watching a few videos and reading articles, dumbed down even for me, still can’t get my head around it.
Let’s assume it is a 1 kg lead weight in the vacuum of space floating at 1mph.
if its floating through space then apart from kinetic energy which sent it there, and the gravitational energy which made it, what energy is there in that object which makes it applicable to the equation. “A small amount of mass is equal to a large amount of energy” but how?
Also, why is it the speed of light squared? Surely it’d just be the speed of light. If squared that’d be a massive speed so why is it used here?
Finally how come it’s so important? Why is it still important today? Don’t want to sound reductionist but this really makes no sense to me to why it’s so famous.
There are plenty of explanations, none of which make this equation make sense. So assume I am actually 5 years old and somehow figured out how to make a reddit post, how would you explain it?
In: 0
The chair you’re sitting in is made of molecules of different things – wood, plastic, leather, whatever.
Those molecules are made of atoms.
Those atoms are made of smaller subatomic particles.
Energy – electricity, light, etc – is also made of subatomic particles.
So: at a very basic level, energy and matter are made from the same basic building blocks.
When you set a log on fire – or detonate a nuclear bomb – you are converting matter into energy. E=mc^2 is the conversion factor for how much energy you could possibly get from a certain amount of mass – or how much matter you could turn a certain amount of energy into – if you could do it at 100% maximum efficiency. Think Star Trek-style transporters and replicators.
Latest Answers