Can you explain to me the E=mc2 Einstein's theory in a SIMPLE language?

Question

Hey, I'm just 14 okay! And what the 'E','=' and 'mc2' means? You know, those are abbrevations right?

Right now, Jose Frink guy is the best answer. Now I understand it. Tha's what they call a simple language!

Answer 1

Well, presumably, you know what "=" means, right?

"E" is energy, "m" is mass, and "c" is the invariant speed, AKA the speed of light.

It means that there is energy in mass, even when that mass is isolated and not moving, and the amount of energy is mc^2. It also implies that energy can be converted into mass if you have enough of it. That's all that equation says.

This energy can be released in various ways. When a particle and its antiparticle meet, they annihilate each other and destroy all their mass, converting it into energy. In a hydrogen bomb, or the Sun, four protons combine to form a helium nucleus. But the helium nucleus is slightly less massive than the 4 protons that went into it. That mass was converted into energy. Hence the Sun shines and atom bombs are scary.

Answer 2

The easy symbol is c. c stands for the speed of light, 299,792,458 m/s. c2 or c^2 is c squared.

m stands for mass in kg.

E is energy in joules. Since c^2 is such a large number, E=mc^2 shows that a small amount of mass corresponds to an enormous amount of energy. There are processes that convert some mass into energy, like nuclear fission and fusion, which demonstrate this spectacularly.

ADDED--

If you do some further reading on this you'll discover there is some confusion over the meaning of m. In some treatments you'll hear about "relativistic mass," which gets larger as an object is accelerated faster and faster and approaches the speed of light. When m is defined that way, E represents the total energy of the mass, including its energy due to its motion.

A more modern view is to define m as what the older books called "rest mass." In this view m is an invariant -- everyone agrees on its value -- and E is the "rest energy" of m. When a mass is in motion and has a momentum represented by p, then its total energy is given by this formula:

E^2 = (mc^2)^2 +(pc)^2

Enjoy your exploration of relativity. It's fascinating. Try the book Space and Time in Special Relativity by N. David Mermin.

Answer 3

It means that Energy and Mass are basically the same thing. They are convertible one to the other. Before Einstein people thought they were two totally different things.
This is proved in a nuclear reactor, where mass is converted to energy and vis versa.
E -> energy content of the resting mass.
m -> rest mass (The mass 'sitting still')
c -> The speed of light in vacuum.

Since c^2 is a huge number, even a little m times a huge number gives an enourmous amount of E. For example if 1 gram of mass was completely converted into its energy equivalent, the amount of energy would be about 25 million kilo-Watt hours. If you could completely burn a gram a second you could theoretically supply all of America's energy needs with room to spare!

Answer 4

E stands for energy. m stands for mass. c stands for the speed of light in a vacuum, which is equal to 3 x 10^8 m/s. The 2 is an exponent, meaning that c is squared. And when two expressions like m and c^2 are put together like that, it means they are being multiplied. = is an equals sign, meaning that the two sides of the equation have the same value.

On the whole, what this means is that a given mass m is equivalent to an amount of energy E = mc^2. This is the energy that would be released if, for example, an amount of mass m were annihilated with an equal mass of antimatter. (The antimatter would also release this amount of energy, so the total energy release would really be 2*mc^2.)

Answer 5

Albert Einstein is perhaps the most famous scientist of this century. One of his most well-known accomplishments is the formula E=mc2.
Despite its familiarity, many people don't really understand what it means.
One of Einstein's great insights was to realize that matter and energy are really different forms of the same thing. Matter can be turned into energy, and energy into matter.

Einstein's formula tells us the amount of energy this mass would be equivalent to, if it were all suddenly turned into energy. It says that to find the energy, you multiply the mass by the square of the speed of light, this number being 300,000,000 meters per second (a very large number)

Answer 6

Try a book called E=mc2 by David Bodanis. It is explained in detail, and anyone can understand it. It is also satisying to actually research something for yourself.

In a general way it says energy and matter are the same thing - and that a little bit of matter contains huge/vast amounts of energy.

Answer 7

I'll agree with you here, "Reindeer"--Jose Frink also explained this well enough for ME to understand it---and I don't understand ANYTHING about algebra. Now, I just recently saw something on TV that totally explained Einstein's theory of relativity. Try clicking on: www.pbs.org/einstein or going to PBS.

Answer 8

E -> energy content of the resting mass.
m -> rest mass (The mass 'sitting still')(ALSO KNOWN AS MASS DEFECT)
c -> The speed of light in vacuum WHICH IS 3X10^8

Answer 9

Energy equals the mass of an object times the speed of light squared (or times itself)
It means-
that if you move matter toward the speed of light, you can create lots of energy.
But-
It takes an infinite amount of energy to move an object to the speed of light.

Answer 10

you cant explain it in simple language. it can only be explained in scientific language.