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

You can change matter into energy and the other way around, knowing this.

However. c is the speed of light. And light moves extremely fast, so c is very big. c^2 is even bigger! So for even a tiny bit of mass, you get a huuuuuuuuuuge amount of energy.

That is for example why the sun works. It transform a tiny fraction of its mass into so much energy that everything can live here and be warm, and we only get a tony fraction of all the light from the sun!

Answer 2

You can change matter into energy and the other way around, knowing this.

However. c is the speed of light. And light moves extremely fast, so c is very big. c^2 is even bigger! So for even a tiny bit of mass, you get a huuuuuuuuuuge amount of energy.

That is for example why the sun works. It transform a tiny fraction of its mass into so much energy that everything can live here and be warm, and we only get a tony fraction of all the light from the sun!