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?
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Yeah quality, methodically well parsed answers, with good effort always deserve an award. There’s so many one-liners on Reddit and it’s always a joy to really be able to learn. We all have our expertise and a year plus ago is what initially drew me into Reddit in architectural forums. I’ve since long expanded but always enjoy a good post. Not everything of course is so serious, and excellent humor and quick rejoinders are equally so smart and deserving
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It is simple and revolutionary — to those not involved in physics at a very high level, the idea that mass and energy could be converted one to another was mind-boggling. The equivalence also led directly to the creation of the atomic bomb, which loomed much larger in worldwide consciousness at the time than it does now.
In case anyone happens to read this and is curious what e=mc^2 actually means, it means that the energy released in a nuclear reaction can be solved by taking the mass that was lost and multiplying it by the speed of light squared.
The speed of light (in a vacuum) is 299,792,458 m/s (meters per second.) When you square that value, you get 89,875,517,870,000,000 m^2/s^2 (meters squared per second squared.) When you convert the mass lost to kg and multiply it by c^2 you get a unit of kg*m^2/s^2 (kilogram meter squared per second squared) which just so happens to be the Joule (the SI unit of energy.)
When a nuclear reaction happens, the nuclear (in the nucleus of the atom) configuration changes to a more energetically favorable one; the result is a slight loss of mass. By multiplying that loss of mass by c^2 we get the energy of the reaction in Joules. This number (per unit of reaction) is orders of magnitude (like 10 million times) greater than a comparable chemical reaction (like the combustion of gasoline.)
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
Yeah quality, methodically well parsed answers, with good effort always deserve an award. There’s so many one-liners on Reddit and it’s always a joy to really be able to learn. We all have our expertise and a year plus ago is what initially drew me into Reddit in architectural forums. I’ve since long expanded but always enjoy a good post. Not everything of course is so serious, and excellent humor and quick rejoinders are equally so smart and deserving
[removed]
It is simple and revolutionary — to those not involved in physics at a very high level, the idea that mass and energy could be converted one to another was mind-boggling. The equivalence also led directly to the creation of the atomic bomb, which loomed much larger in worldwide consciousness at the time than it does now.
In case anyone happens to read this and is curious what e=mc^2 actually means, it means that the energy released in a nuclear reaction can be solved by taking the mass that was lost and multiplying it by the speed of light squared.
The speed of light (in a vacuum) is 299,792,458 m/s (meters per second.) When you square that value, you get 89,875,517,870,000,000 m^2/s^2 (meters squared per second squared.) When you convert the mass lost to kg and multiply it by c^2 you get a unit of kg*m^2/s^2 (kilogram meter squared per second squared) which just so happens to be the Joule (the SI unit of energy.)
When a nuclear reaction happens, the nuclear (in the nucleus of the atom) configuration changes to a more energetically favorable one; the result is a slight loss of mass. By multiplying that loss of mass by c^2 we get the energy of the reaction in Joules. This number (per unit of reaction) is orders of magnitude (like 10 million times) greater than a comparable chemical reaction (like the combustion of gasoline.)
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