Why is Einstein’s E=MC2 such a big deal that everyone’s heard of it? How important was that discovery actually, is it like in the top 3 most important discoveries of all time or is it kind of overhyped?

Question

Why is Einstein’s E=MC2 such a big deal that everyone’s heard of it? How important was that discovery actually, is it like in the top 3 most important discoveries of all time or is it kind of overhyped?

In: 1393

Answer 1

A lot of smart people have obviously already answered why Einstein’s work is important. But I think that’s not the only reason why E=mc² is so important, there’s also a cultural component to it. There are not many *modern* scientific theories and concepts that I can think of that can be neatly summarised by an easy equation that almost everyone can remember, recognise, and understand. It strikes a good balance between being complicated enough to “look smart” and being easy enough for the average person to remember, making it a perfect cultural “short hand” for science.

There are other formulae and their related discoveries that are also very important, but they’re not nearly as short and simple. Like [this one](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/imgel2/maxw4.gif), whose complexity is illustrated by the fact I have to link an image of it because it can’t easily be displayed in markdown, whereas I can just type out E=mc² on my phone.

Answer 2

A lot of smart people have obviously already answered why Einstein’s work is important. But I think that’s not the only reason why E=mc² is so important, there’s also a cultural component to it. There are not many *modern* scientific theories and concepts that I can think of that can be neatly summarised by an easy equation that almost everyone can remember, recognise, and understand. It strikes a good balance between being complicated enough to “look smart” and being easy enough for the average person to remember, making it a perfect cultural “short hand” for science.

There are other formulae and their related discoveries that are also very important, but they’re not nearly as short and simple. Like [this one](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/imgel2/maxw4.gif), whose complexity is illustrated by the fact I have to link an image of it because it can’t easily be displayed in markdown, whereas I can just type out E=mc² on my phone.