How does Einstein’s famous E=mc2 relate to a nuclear bomb?

Question

I get the basics, energy equal mass times velocity squared, but how does that create a nuclear reaction large enough to make a bomb?

In: Physics

Answer 1

its not just velocity squared, “c” stands for the speed of light.

And the answer is that when you make a nuclear fission bomb, like those dropped on japan, a tiny fraction of the mass of the uranium/plutonium is converted entirely into energy.

essentially it shows that you can convert mass to energy, and energy to mass. So if you were to take 1kg of something, and completely convert it to energy, it would release c^2 Joules of energy, or 90,000,000,000, this is an insane amount of energy, and yo’ud never realistically be able to convert that much mass.

But, with a Fission nuclear bomb, you are converting mass to energy, just very tiny amounts of mass. But because the conversion is still massive, even a tiny little bit of mass releases lots and lots of energy.