Eli5 energy and states from matter

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Since E=mc^2, energy a state of matter?

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Energy is not a state of matter but they are two different forms of the same thing. Energy and mass are interchangeable in the formula. They only differ by a constant, the speed of light squared. When looking at an object in a frame of rest, it’s energy is equal to its mass multiplied by c^2. Think about a penny, it doesn’t have much mass, right? Now let’s say you could convert the entire penny into energy. You’d have enough energy to power a large city for several years. That is only if we had the power to turn it into pure energy, we don’t and most likely won’t. It would take an incredible amount of heat and pressure, more than currently found in the Sun.

A cool fact about the constant c, it’s short for celeritas, the latin word for “speed”.

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