Why is the speed-of-light squared (times mass) equal to energy?

Question

In layman's terms, why is it that Einstein's famous equation showing that matter is just concentrated energy (E=mc2) and matter-energy can be converted into eachother, why is it that it so happens to be the speed-of-light squared (times mass) that is equal to energy??? What is so special about the speed of light, which is just how fast light photons move?

Why isn't it 122,000 miles per second squared x mass = energy or 1,000,0000 miles per second squared x mass = energy???

What, exactly, is so darn special about the speedlimit of photon particles that somehow fits into an perfect equation relating to energy/mass equivalence? Is this just a miraculous, unbeliavable coincidence that the number just so happens to be the speed of light that is squared?

Thanks! I look forward to reading your responses!

Answer 1

Hooray! I get to talk about my favorite subject, relativity! In addition to being the speed of light, c is also the speed of causality. All things within the universe, be they light, people or planets, travel at the same speed...the speed of causality. I can hear your protests already, "How can all objects be travelling at the speed of light? After all, cars go different speeds and airplanes go much faster." Here is a thought experiment for you. Imagine two cars going 100 miles per hour...one on a road going North and one on a road going Northeast. Now imagine someone on the side of the road who is only measuring their speed in the North direction. From that guys point of view, the Northward car will be shown to have a speed of 100 mph, but the guy going Northeast will only appear to have a speed of around 70 mph because some of his motion is in the Eastward direction. Its like this for everyday objects that seem to travel at different speeds. In actuallity they are all going the speed of light, but from our point of view they look like they're going different speeds because we don't measure their speed in the time direction. This makes our universe four dimensional...three space directions and one time direction. To find the speed of an everyday object, we square the speeds in each of the three space directions, add them together, and take the square root. The equation is s² = x² + y² + z². Here s is the actual speed and x, y, and z are the speeds in each of the three individual spacial directions. (North, East, and Up if you want to think of it in concrete terms) In relativity to find the actual speed, you get s² = r² - x² - y² - z², where r is the speed in the time direction....but in relativity all objects travel at the speed of light, so the equation becomes c² = r² - x² - y² - z²...where c is the constant speed of light (speed of causality). Now, you may remember that an objects momentum is given by q = ms (q is the momentum, m is the mass, and s is the speed) Momentum can be split up into different directions too. To find the actual momentum in relativity you do what you did with the speeds and take q² = a² - e² - i² -o². (a is the time momentum, e, i, and o are the regular everyday momentums in the three spacial directions) It turns out that the Energy of an object (or rather E/c) is the object's time momentum. Since all objects have the same speed, in relativity all objects have a total momentum given by q = mc. Thus the equation for momentum becomes, (mc)² = (E/c)² - p². (p is the everyday momentum in the three spacial directions) Solving for E we get E= c√ [(mc)² + p²]. For an object at rest from our point of view...all the motion is in the time direction...the spacial momentum p = 0 and the equation simplifies to E = mc². The main thing to note is that E = mc² only applies to an object that isn't moving from our point of view. For a light particle (photon), m = 0 and the equation becomes E = pc. Where p is the everyday momentum. (notice that since photons always travel at the speed of light in the ordinary spacial directions...they have no speed in the time direction)

Answer 2

Energy inherent to the structure of a mass is the Sum of all the micromass energy of the substance of light which make up the atomic structure of the material.

Energy is defined per Quantron theory as a force which moves one period of oscillation.
Hence any masses that is caused to moves experience a moving force. When a mass is in motion its is said to have Energy. We measure energy as the product of a mass and the velocity square that it has acquired during its motion.

The larger the mass the slower it moves. Ths smaller the mass ,the faster it moves.
Light being composed of a flux of micromasses which consists of the smallest masses in the Universe would be the fastest moving micromass in the Universe.

Hence the Energy one basic micromass of light would equal to Ms x C^2 defined as Joules in Units of kg m^2/sec^2.
Where C is the speed of light measured in meters per seconds.
Ms is the mass singularity of light ,measured in Kilogrames.

Note ;what is called photons is a misnomer its neither a particle mass or a wave in reality. It is just a convenience term to describe how much radiative Energy flux moving at a particular frequency is falling on a surface per second per unit area of surface.
The motion of light micromass has a duality nature type of motion, in the sense that its motion is both inertial and non-inertial as well.; Light like any other mass experiences also an osciliatory moving force during its motion .

See Henri Poincare original publication in 1901 of the Equation E=MC^2.

Its all very vely simple.

Answer 3

Science is actually a long way from being able to answer this question. Yes, c is a property of spacetime and the electroweak interaction. But why do c and a few other constants of nature have the values they have? The anthropic principle basically says 'because it works.' Vary some of those constants by even small amounts, and the physical universe as we know it becomes impossible. Are there other values which could work in some other universe? Perhaps, but it's a huge amount of work to contemplate and calculate the implications of any candidate set of physical laws. Most scientists care more about our own home universe.

Answer 4

c is often called "the speed of light" because light was the first thing known to travel at that speed. But c is far more fundamental than that: it is the invariant speed, the one speed that everyone agrees on regardless of their own velocities. It is the conversion factor between space (meters) and time (seconds). When you say that c is 300,000,000 meters per second you are saying that 300,000,000 meters *IS IDENTICAL TO* one second. It is a parameter that describes the structure of spacetime.

Answer 5

here's a phenomenological answer that often helps to check equations for correctness: check out the units. you'll see that you NEED m^2.s^-2 to satisfy the units of energy on the other side of the equation. Other than that, asking why the equation looks the way it does, is a bit like asking why is 2+3=5?

Answer 6

Wikipedia has a good article on this.

Answer 7

Use the KISS principle, looking at the units:

M*c² = (F/a)*(L²/t²) = (F*t²/L)*(L²/t²) = F*L (The definition of energy)

Voila!

Answer 8

E=MC2

E=Energy
M=Mass
C=Constant

where are you getting "speed of light" from
we know C is a high number, but its not the speed of light