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
E=MC2, and the theory of relativity that extends from it, is an extension, a furtherance of Newton’s Laws of Motion, at high speeds. If you plug in objects moving slowly into them, they become the Newtonian Laws.
What he discovered was, in its own way, as important. Many technologies central to our society today require understanding relativity and how speed and time interact to keep the speed of light constant, no matter what your speed is. Satellite GPS, for example. There are predictions Einstein made about black holes, based on that theory, that weren’t able to be measured until the 2000’s. And they were spot on.
Top 3 of all time? That’s a tall order. Agriculture and the wheel transformed society. Understanding of radio waves transformed society. Steam power transformed society (in fact, most power plants, from coal to nuclear, utilize steam power in their power generation). Einstein’s theory of relativity transformed society.
It’s hard to call it top 3. But it is in a class of rare discoveries that fundamentally transformed how humanity as a whole lives their lives. If you use Google maps, thank Einstein.
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
E=MC2, and the theory of relativity that extends from it, is an extension, a furtherance of Newton’s Laws of Motion, at high speeds. If you plug in objects moving slowly into them, they become the Newtonian Laws.
What he discovered was, in its own way, as important. Many technologies central to our society today require understanding relativity and how speed and time interact to keep the speed of light constant, no matter what your speed is. Satellite GPS, for example. There are predictions Einstein made about black holes, based on that theory, that weren’t able to be measured until the 2000’s. And they were spot on.
Top 3 of all time? That’s a tall order. Agriculture and the wheel transformed society. Understanding of radio waves transformed society. Steam power transformed society (in fact, most power plants, from coal to nuclear, utilize steam power in their power generation). Einstein’s theory of relativity transformed society.
It’s hard to call it top 3. But it is in a class of rare discoveries that fundamentally transformed how humanity as a whole lives their lives. If you use Google maps, thank Einstein.
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