In Einstein's equation E=MC squared, what does the C squared represent and how in the heck did he get there?

Answer 1

Well, only Einstein will know how he got there but I know what it represents: E= energy
M= mass
C= speed of light
Hope you got what you were looking 4.

Answer 2

"c" is the speed of light in a vacuum; so c² is that speed multiplied by itself.

"How he got there" is not easy to answer in a short response. But it all started when Einstein came up with the idea that light (in a vacuum) always travels at the same speed (namely "c") regardless of how fast the observer or the light source is moving. Once you accept that odd fact, you can show mathematically that it has a lot of other consequences, such as the fact that time expands, and distances shrink, and no two events are truly simultaneous, and energy and mass are two manifestations of the same thing.

And since all those odd consequences come from the original "speed of light is constant" postulate, the math carries that value "c" into all of the resulting equations.

Answer 3

The surprising answer to this is that the speed of light was a convenient large number at hand. Einstein was intrigued by light for most of his life, he had proved it be a constant in the universe and it suited the equation closely enough to satisfy him.

Answer 4

C squared means the squared value of the speed of light.The development of general relativity began with the equivalence principle, under which the states of accelerated motion and being at rest in a gravitational field (for example when standing on the surface of the Earth) are physically identical. The upshot of this is that free fall is inertial motion: In other words an object in free fall is falling because that is how objects move when there is no force being exerted on them, instead of this being due to the force of gravity as is the case in classical mechanics. This is incompatible with classical mechanics and special relativity because in those theories inertially moving objects cannot accelerate with respect to each other, but objects in free fall do so

Answer 5

c^2 represents the speed of light in a vaccuum. Long story short, relativity, and therefore that equation, was meant to link newtons laws of mechanics with Maxwell's wave equations. Inside Maxwells wave equations (which govern light, among other things) was the term C which represents how fast light moves.

Answer 6

Constant.Only the gods know.