ASA University Bangladesh

REPORT ON
The Report presented to the Faculty of Business Administration in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Business Administration Submitted To: Md. Ahsan ul Hasan Lecturer Faculty of business ASA University Bangladesh (ASAUB) Submitted By:
Name Hosnain Ahmed Riyad Ahmed MD. Mahmudul Hassan Tasmia Kamal Nafisa Halim Miss. Jannatul Ferdus Section 7A 7A 7A 7A 7A 7A ID 092-12-0002 092-12-0003 092-12-0006 092-12-0017 092-12-0021 092-12-0110

Date: 16th July 2011

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REPORT ON The theory of relativity E=mc2

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ASA University Bangladesh (ASAUB)

ASA Tower 23/3 Khilji Road, Shyamoli, Mohammadpur, Dhaka-1207 E-mail: asabd@dhaka.net http://www.asaub.edu.bd Date: july10, 2011 To Md.Ahsan ul Hasan Coordinator, Faculty of Business ASA University Bangladesh Subject: Submission of group report on the theory of relativity E=mc2 Dear Sir Here is the term paper that we have prepared for our GED-314: Business English. The topic of this report was the The theory of relativity E=mc2 that you asked us to conduct last 16th July 2011. As you will see, our course pointed some specific rules for the system of studying introduction to natural science. Following the procedure we agree to prepare an outline of these needs in a revised curriculum plan that will help us to correct the students information with its system in aspect of students need. It was an interesting research and we would like to take this opportunity to thank you for allowing us to work on this topic and for your constant guidance and support. Sincerely Yours Hosnain Ahmed Riyadh Ahmed Md. Mahmudul Hassan Tasmia Kamal Nafisa Halim Miss. Jannatul Ferdus ...

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Acknowledgement
Preparing this report on The theory of relativity E=mc2 was a wonderful experience for us. We would like to thank our faculty, Md. Ahsan ul Hasan, Lecturer, Faculty of Business, ASA University Bangladesh for giving us this opportunity as well as for her constant guidance and support. Finally we would like to thank our family and almighty Allah for supporting us the courage to carry on our work.

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Executive Summary
Every invention makes world more preferable and fulfilled. E=MC2 is one of them. E = mc2 has sometimes been used as an explanation for the origin of energy in nuclear processes, but massenergy equivalence does not explain the origin of such energies. Instead, this relationship merely indicates that the large amounts of energy released in such reactions may exhibit enough mass that the mass-loss may be measured, when the released energy (and its mass) has been removed from the system. Einstein was not the first to propose a massenergy relationship (see the History section), the formula equivalence was proposed and published in 1904 by the Italian scientist Olinto de Pretto in the minutes of the Royal Science Institute of Venice, he first published it in the Atte magazine of Italy in 1903.

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Table of Contents

Table of Contents................................................6 Introduction........................................................7 Biography...........................................................7 Einsteins idea.....................................................9 Einsteins theory of relativity.............................13 Solving the Basic Equation.................................13 The Components of the Equation........................14
E = Energy..................................................................................................15 M = Mass....................................................................................................17 C = the Speed of Light...............................................................................17

"Proof" of E=mc2...............................................19
The "Proof" of Special Relativity.................................................................20 What Does the Equation Mean?..................................................................21 The Law of the Conservation of Energy......................................................21 Invention of atomic bomb...........................................................................22

Conclusion ........................................................24 References........................................................25

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Introduction
Albert Einstein is perhaps the most famous scientist of this century. One of his most well-known accomplishments is the formula E=mc2. One of the most extraordinary things about Einsteins energy-mass equation is its simplicity. However, we still need to make sure we are using the correct units when solving the equation, and that we understand the answer. The purpose of this page is to solve the equation as it is and give some idea of the huge amount of energy locked up in even the smallest amount of mass. The famous equation E=mc2 was established in 1905 by German-born physicist Albert Einstein (18791955). (A physicist is a scientist specializing in the interaction between matter and energy.) The equation is significant because it contributed to the development of nuclear energy and the atomic bomb. In the formula E stands for energy, m stands for mass, and c2 is a symbol called a constant factor, in which c stands for the speed of light and 2 means squared (the factor, or number, is multiplied by itself). This equation illustrates the relationship between energy and matter, as well as their exchangeability. In the 1930s scientists used Einstein's formula and discovered that when the atom is split, part of the atom is transformed into particles but that some is also converted into energy.

Biography
Albert Einstein was born at Ulm, in Wrttemberg, Germany, on March 14, 1879. Six weeks later the family moved to Munich, where he later on began his schooling at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Later, they moved to Italy and Albert continued his education at Aarau, Switzerland and in 1896 he entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics. In 1901, the year he gained his diploma, he acquired Swiss citizenship and, as he was unable to find a teaching post, he accepted a position as technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office. In 1905 he obtained his doctor's degree. During his stay at the Patent Office, and in his spare time, he produced much of his remarkable work and in 1908 he was appointed Privatdozent in Berne. In 1909 he became Professor Extraordinary at Zurich, in 1911 Professor of Theoretical Physics at Prague, returning to Zurich in the following year to fill a similar post. In 1914 he was appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and Professor in the University of Berlin. He became a German citizen in 1914 and remained in Berlin until 1933 when he 7 | Page

renounced his citizenship for political reasons and immigrated to America to take the position of Professor of Theoretical Physics at Princeton. He became a United States citizen in 1940 and retired from his post in 1945. After World War II, Einstein was a leading figure in the World Government Movement, he was offered the Presidency of the State of Israel, which he declined, and he collaborated with Dr. Chaim Weizmann in establishing the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Einstein always appeared to have a clear view of the problems of physics and the determination to solve them. He had a strategy of his own and was able to visualize the main stages on the way to his goal. He regarded his major achievements as mere stepping-stones for the next advance. At the start of his scientific work, Einstein realized the inadequacies of Newtonian mechanics and his special theory of relativity stemmed from an attempt to reconcile the laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. He dealt with classical problems of statistical mechanics and problems in which they were merged with quantum theory: this led to an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules. He investigated the thermal properties of light with a low radiation density and his observations laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In his early days in Berlin, Einstein postulated that the correct interpretation of the special theory of relativity must also furnish a theory of gravitation and in 1916 he published his paper on the general theory of relativity. During this time he also contributed to the problems of the theory of radiation and statistical mechanics. In the 1920's, Einstein embarked on the construction of unified field theories, although he continued to work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, and he persevered with this work in America. He contributed to statistical mechanics by his development of the quantum theory of a monatomic gas and he has also accomplished valuable work in connection with atomic transition probabilities and relativistic cosmology. After his retirement he continued to work towards the unification of the basic concepts of physics, taking the opposite approach, geometrisation, to the majority of physicists. Einstein's researches are, of course, well chronicled and his more important works include Special Theory of Relativity (1905), Relativity (English translations, 1920 and 1950), General Theory of Relativity (1916), Investigations on Theory of Brownian Movement (1926), and The Evolution of Physics (1938). Among his non-scientific works, About Zionism (1930), Why 8 | Page

War? (1933), My Philosophy (1934), and Out of My Later Years (1950) are perhaps the most important. Albert Einstein received honorary doctorate degrees in science, medicine and philosophy from many European and American universities. During the 1920's he lectured in Europe, America and the Far East and he was awarded Fellowships or Memberships of all the leading scientific academies throughout the world. He gained numerous awards in recognition of his work, including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1925, and the Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1935.

Einstein's gifts inevitably resulted in his dwelling much in intellectual solitude and, for relaxation; music played an important part in his life. He married Mileva Maric in 1903 and they had a daughter and two sons; their marriage was dissolved in 1919 and in the same year he married his cousin, Elsa Lwenthal, who died in 1936. He died on April 18, 1955 at Princeton, New Jersey.
From Nobel Lectures , Physics 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1967

Einsteins idea
As mentioned Bodanis claims that before Einstain mass and energy were believed to be separate domains. In the equation e=mc2 Einstein unites these two domains by claiming that if we could transform mass into energy, we could get mc2 units of energy out it the process. This is a startling claim because it implies that within 1 kg of mass lies hidden about 25 billion kilowatt units of energy (if we somehow could convert the mass into energy). The reason such small amount of materials contains so much energy is because of the large value of c the speed of light. Light travels 300 000 km in one second (a fact first discovered by the Danish scientist Ole Rmer in 1676). Einstein says that to find the energy of mass it should be multiplied by this large number no only once, but twice. That is, to find the energy of some material we multiply its mass first by 300 000 and then we multiply this again by 300 000. No wonder we get such a large number in the end even with a small starting point! In effect, then, the equation says that mass is the purest form of concentrated energy and it raises the possibility that mass can be transformed to energy and vice versa. 9 | Page

How did Einstein get this idea? Even before Einstein it was known that energy was most conveniently measured by the its mass times the square of its velocity. Bodanis presents this, as always, in a fascinating story where the hero is a rich, beautiful and very intelligent woman named Emilie du Chtelet (a modern day equivalent, Bodanis says, is Geena Davies!). The background was as follows. Newton had suggested that energy should be measured by the mass of something times it velocity. The problem with this was that it opened up the possibility for energy to disappear, as when two objects collide and come to rest. The energy from one seems to cancel the other and the result is a loss of energy. And, if collisions caused a loss of energy, the word should gradually come to a standstill since all objects occasionally collide and loose energy. For Newton, however, this was not a problem. In fact, Newton believed that his theory demonstrated the existence of God. If you believe his theory then the world should come to a halt, but the fact that it does not shows that there must be a God who is continually supplying energy to the world. Leibniz disagreed with this and argued that surely God would have been smart enough to create a self-sustaining world where energy did not disappear. Hence, instead of Newtons suggestion that energy should be measured by mass times velocity, Leibniz claimed that energy should be measured by velocity squared times mass. This had the advantage that the energy from to colliding object would not be zero. What was needed, then, was knowledge of experimental evidence that could determine the matter. Due Chtelet herself did not conduct such an experiment, but she knew about an experiment conducted by Williem sGravesande. He had discovered that if you double the speed of a bullet it will not go twice as far into a layer of mud or clay, but four times as far. Triple its speed and it goes nine times as deep. It is the same with cars, double the speed of a car and the distance it takes to stop becomes four times as long (2 squared). The same phenomenon is observed in many other processes and one may speculate that it expresses some kind of fundamental law derived from a deeper mathematical symmetry or unity in nature. In any case, the point is that even before Einstein it was established that energy should be measured as mass times velocity squared. I found the story above very fascinating, if nothing else because it reveals what today must seem like quite quaint arguments about the existence of God was used to support or reject a theory about how to measure energy. I was, however, also slightly confused. First, measuring energy in terms of the square of the velocity does not seem to prevent energy from being lost. If both objects reduce their velocity to zero after the collision, the energy is lost even if it measured by velocity squared since zero times something else is zero. Also the story seems to contradict the argument that Einstein was the first to connect energy and mass together. That had been done by 10 | P a g e

Newton, Leibniz, du Chtelet and many others. Indeed, it was even already known that the mass of electrons increased when their velocity approached the speed of light (Hendrik Antoon Lorentz's theory of electrons). What was new and revolutionary, however, was the idea that the potential energy in some mass was not only the square of its velocity, but the square of the speed of light. In this perspective even an object standing still contained a lot of energy. Thus, the question becomes not so much why Einstein connected mass and energy, but why he used the speed of light as the factor of conversion. To explain this Bodanis adapts an analogy used by Einstein himself. Imagine you are flying a very fast space-ship and that you try to go faster than the speed of light (300 000 km/s). What happens when you are flying at 299 999 km/s and tries to go even faster? The answer, according to Einstein, is that the space shuttle will not go faster, but the energy used in trying to go faster will result in larger mass: the space-ship will become larger and heavier! Today we can prove this experimentally. Using the particle accelerators outside Chicago and in CERN, it has been found that a proton (a very small thing) running at a velocity that is 99,9997% of the speed of light becomes 430 times bigger than it was originally. In short, since nothing can go faster than the speed of light the extra energy will instead become mass, not speed. The analogy, however, does not explain exactly why nothing can go faster than light, or, indeed, why the phenomenon is gradual and not discrete. To take the latter first: You do not need to approach the speed of light to before the energy is increasing the mass. The analogy may make people believe that only the extra energy that is used trying to go beyond the speed of light will be used to increase in mass, but in fact the phenomenon can be observed at all speeds although the effect is much larger when the speed is high. Second, why is the speed of light an absolute speed-limit in the universe? Bodanis has a go at this question. He first introduces us to absolute limits in nature. For instance, nothing can become colder than -274 degrees Celsius because at that point the atoms stop vibrating. It is impossible to vibrate less than no vibration and since no vibration occurs at -274 degrees then this is the absolute zero nothing can be colder by vibrating less! This shows that absolute limits exist in nature, but it does not show why nothing can go faster than the speed of light. To go further Bodanis tries to explain how light moves. The starting point of the story is James Clark Maxwells discovery that light is a physical process involving jumps and squeezes. Light is, briefly, a jump made by an electric field from a magnetic field. Out of this magnetic field jumps an electric field and so the process goes on. This is only make things slightly more 11 | P a g e

understandable. The explanation in terms of jumps is very general and it does not add much to my knowledge except, maybe, to make me believe that light is a physical process and as such it has an inherent speed by which it can move. It does not, however, say exactly why this is the speed limit for all kinds of movement. A third step in the argument tries to make this last argument more explicit, but I am unsure about how convincing it is. In brief, the argument is that since light IS movement, then there will be no light if you go faster than light itself. This I understand, but I still do not know why things cannot move faster than light (even if they then will be in the dark or only seeing/catching up old light). This is not to say that I believe things can go faster than light, only to say that I do not fully understand why. I basically accept the velocity of light as an empirically established speed limit in nature, although I do have some problems even with this based on experiments from quantum physics where things seem to communicate or react faster than can be explained by the speed of light (but my competence here is far too thin to be convincing). In short, Bodanis arguments, analogies, and examples did bring me closer to an understanding, but I did not reach the point where I felt everything fell into place. How did Einstein arrive at his revolutionary equation? Bodanis suggest that it was a combination of several factors. First of all Einstein disliked authority, so he was always eager to challenge the established physical laws. Hence, the old laws that total mass is constant and total energy is constant were not for Einstein unquestionable truths and in fact, his equation implies that the laws are wrong. Since energy can be transformed into mass and mass into energy then sum of each is not constant, but it is the sum of energy and mass together that is constant. Why was Einstein so critical of authority? Building on an argument from Thorstein Veblen, Bodanis suggests that religion played a role here. The argument is that if you as a child is taught to believe in a religious world view, you might later develop a deep suspicion of authority when you discover that some of these teachings seems to be wrong. Second, Bodanis suggests that not having a job in research was important since such a job could have promoted a tendency to superficial research. Third and slightly in conflict with the first argument, there was the importance of being supported and encouraged by his family to challenge established truths even from childhood. There are also several other arguments and although some of them are plausible, I think it is a field ill-suited for generalization. All kinds of people with all kinds of different backgrounds seem to make important discoveries and although there might be some common tendencies in their background, I am not sure what they are.

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Einsteins theory of relativity

The title of Bodanis book is e=mc2, not the theory of relativity. This is probably a good thing since the term relativity is often misunderstood to mean everything is possible or nothing is true or no precise results are possible. In fact, as Bodanis explains very well, the special theory of relativity is best understood by Einsteins equation combined with an assumption that the speed of light is 50 km/hour. This would imply that a car would change its mass as it went faster. Things would appear different depending from where I was watching the cars. If I were sitting in a car going at a certain speed things would appear to be different than if I were standing still, or going slightly faster. Mass and so on would be relative and since no position can be defined as the true perspective, things could be called relative (although Einstein himself did not like the expression). The general theory of relativity, takes this a bit further and tries to unite not only mass and energy, but time and space as well as mass and energy, but this is the topic of a whole new subject and Bodanis ends his story of e=mc2 before going into the general theory of relativity.

Solving the Basic Equation

Now, we have everything in order. Lets have a go at solving the equation. We will use a mass of 1kg to keep things simple and I will show all of the workings of the equation. So, with 1kg of mass (around 2.2 pounds) we get: 13 | P a g e

Note how the units were dealt with and that kg m2 s-2 is the same as joules (a rigorous proof of this is outside the scope of these pages). So from 1kg of matter, any matter, we can get out 9 x 1016 joules of energy. Writing that out fully we get:

90,000,000,000,000,000 joules
That is a lot of energy! For example, if we converted 1 kg of mass into energy and used it all to power a 100 watt light bulb how long could we keep it lit for? The first thing to do is divide the result by watts (remember that 1 watt is 1 joule per second): 9 x 1016 J / 100W = 9 x 1014 seconds How long is that in years? A year (365.25 days) is 31,557,600 seconds, so we get: 9 x 1014 seconds / 31,557,600 seconds = 28,519,279 years That is a very long time! Of course, converting mass into energy is not quite that simple, and apart from with some tiny particles in experimental situations has never been carried out with 100% efficiency. Perhaps thats just as well.

The Components of the Equation

If we break the equation E = mc2 into its components and write out the terms fully we get: 14 | P a g e

E = energy (measured in joules) m = mass (measured in kilograms) c = the speed of light (186,000 miles per second, or 3 x 108 ms-1)

We will now examine each of the terms in a little more detail.

E = Energy
The word "energy" is actually quite new. Its modern use dates from around the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was beginning to be realized that the power that drove many different processes could be explained by the concept of energy being transferred from one system and form to another. For example, the trains of the day were powered by coal. The coal was burned under a water-filled boiler to produce steam, which in turn pushed pistons attached to the wheels of the train, the wheels turned and the train was set in motion. In this example we start with locked up ("latent") chemical energy in the coal. The chemical energy is turned into heat energy (sometimes called "thermal" energy) by burning the coal and boiling the water. Finally, the thermal energy is turned into the energy of movement ("kinetic energy") by forcing the steam into pistons to drive the wheels.

A moving steam train. Chemical energy - thermal energy - kinetic energy There are many other forms of energy, such as electrical, gravitational, nuclear, and strain energy. However, as different as all these types of energy seem they can all be measured in the same way and thought of as the same thing. The unit that we use to measure energy, from whatever energy source, is the joule (J). Two ways in which we use this unit in everyday terms are:

The total amount of energy in a system.

An example is a lump of coal, which when burned will release a certain number of joules of energy. Another example is food. A calorie (more formally called the small or gram calorie) contains almost 4.2 joules of 15 | P a g e

energy, so if we eat a piece of chocolate that has 100 calories we can expect to get around 420 joules of energy from it. Note: The labeling on food products in Europe shows kJ meaning kilo (1 thousand) joules, and kcal meaning 1000 calories, while in the U.S.A. the labeling on food products shows either "calories" or "Calories", with both taken to mean kilocalories. To add further confusion, "Calories" can also to be taken to mean kilocalories in Europe.

Energy used up over time.

Most electrical devices have their power consumption rated in watts. A watt is a rate of energy consumption of one joule per second. So, if you have a light bulb in your room that is rated at 100W it is using energy at a rate of 100 joules every second. To go back to the example in the previous bullet point, a piece of chocolate with 100 calories isnt very big but could easily ruin a planned daily diet. However, if we turned the chemical energy in our piece of chocolate into electrical energy (a process that can be done) it would only have enough energy to keep our light bulb shining for 4.2 seconds. Personally, Id rather eat the chocolate. So, to summaries, energy comes in many forms, and it can be transferred from one system to another. The basic unit of measurement for energy is the joule.

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M = Mass
Mass is strictly defined as a measure of a bodys inertia, i.e. its resistance to acceleration. Another and simpler way of defining mass is to say that it is the total amount of matter in an object. This latter definition isnt strictly true, but is good enough for our purposes here. Mass is measured in kilograms (kg).

Note that mass isnt the same as weight, although it is often thought to be. Weight is actually a measure of the gravitational force (pull) felt by a body and is measured in Newton (N) (note that scientific units that are named after people are almost always in lower case when spelled out fully, hence newtons and not Newtons). For example, an astronaut walking on the surface of the Moon has the same mass as he or she does on the Earth but only weighs one sixth what they would do back home. The reason for this is that while the mass of the astronaut hasnt changed, the pull of the Moons gravity is only one sixth of what the Earths gravitational pull is.

As with energy, the idea that mass is common to all objects is relatively new and again dates back to around the nineteenth century. Before that time, different solids, liquids and gases were all thought to be only loosely connected in conceptual terms. As with energy we now consider that mass is neither created or destroyed, but is merely changed from one form to another, e.g. we can turn water from a solid (ice) into a gas (steam), but its total mass doesnt change.

C = the Speed of Light

We use the letter c to represent the speed of light. The c comes from the Latin word "celeritous", meaning swift, and its a very apt definition - there is nothing faster than light. In a vacuum, such as space, it travels at close to 186,300 miles per second (300,000 km per second). Thats about seven times around the Earth every second.

The speed of light was first accurately estimated by the Danish astronomer, Ole Roemer (sometimes written as Rmer) during the 1670s. Up until that time everyone assumed that the speed of light was infinite, i.e. that light 17 | P a g e

arrived at its destination instantly. This isnt such an unreasonable assumption given that when we look around us light does indeed appear to reach us instantly. During the seventeenth century it was discovered that there was a problem in calculating the orbital time of Io, the innermost moon of Jupiter. It sometimes took "too long" to make an orbit of the planet and at other times was "too quick". It was thought that the problem must be due to a wobble in the orbit of Io, but Roemer took a different, and very radical, view of the matter. He argued that light, instead of being everywhere instantly, had a finite speed and that this would explain the problem of Io. The Earth was known to travel around the Sun and this meant that sometimes the Earth was closer to Jupiter and sometimes further away. Roemer realised that when the Earth was on the opposite side of the Sun from Jupiter the light from Io would take longer to reach us than when the two bodies were on the same side.

This means that the light has to travel further and therefore takes longer, providing, of course, that light has a speed in the first place. During a meeting of the new Academy of Science in Paris in 1676 Roemer demonstrated that the amassed observational data of the astronomer Cassini indicated that Io would next appear at 5.25pm on November the 9th of that year. He himself predicted that it wouldnt appear until 10 minutes and 45 second later, using his theory that light had a finite speed. The day came and virtually every major observatory in Europe was ready to test the prediction. At 5.25pm, the time predicted by Cassini, Io wasnt visible. Even at 5.35pm Io wasnt visible. But at exactly 5.35pm and 45 second it appeared, just as Roemer said it would. From this it was possible to make the first accurate measurement of the speed of light and the calculated figure was within one percent of what we know it to be today. 18 | P a g e

You may think that that was the end of the matter and that Roemer was celebrated as a scientific genius, showered with honours and given a secure future. Sadly, thats far from what happened. He was only 21 when he made his discovery, while Cassini was a well-respected if egotistical elder scientist, who used his powerful friends to back him up to rubbish Roemers ideas. Scientists, it seems, are human after all and this wasnt the first, or sadly, the last time that an ego got in the way of a new discovery. Roemer eventually gave up science completely and later became the director of the port of Copenhagen and then head of the state council of the realm. It wasnt until 50 years later that further experiments convinced the scientific community that Roemer had been right all along.

"Proof" of E=mc2
Before Einstein, it was known that a beam of light pushes against matter; this is known as radiation pressure. This means the light has momentum. A beam of light of energy E has momentum E/c. Einstein used this fact to show that radiation (light) energy has an equivalent mass.

Consider a cylinder of mass M (see accompanying figure-"energy"). A pulse of light with energy E is emitted from the left side. The cylinder recoils to the left with velocity v=E/(Mc). If the mass of the cylinder is large, it doesn't move far before the light reaches the other side. So, the light must travel a distance L, requiring time t=L/c. In this time, the cylinder travels a distance x=vt=[E/(Mc)](L/c). 19 | P a g e

Einstein reasoned that the center of mass of an isolated system doesn't just move on its own. So, the motion of the cylinder must be compensated by the motion of some other mass. Let's assume the light has mass m. Then, Mx=mL, since the cylinder moves x to the left and the light moves L to the right. Substituting the expression for x given above, the equation can be simplified to E=mc2. From the fact that light has momentum, Einstein showed that light energy has the characteristics of mass also. In other words, energy has inertia. It turns out that all energy has this feature. That's because one form of energy can be transformed into another. So, if one kind of energy has this characteristic, all forms of energy do.

The "Proof" of Special Relativity

When Einstein first proposed his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905 few people understood it and even fewer people believed it. It wasn't until 1919 that the Special Theory was "proved by inference" from an experiment carried out on his General Theory of Relativity. Physicists now routinely use relativity in many experiments all over the world every week of the year. However, these experiments are highly specialized and usually require a great deal of knowledge and training in order to understand them. So what evidence is there for the general public that special relativity is correct? Probably the most spectacular "proof" is nuclear weapons. These pages are not about the morality of such weapons (but that is not to say the question of their existence or use is not an important one). However, whether one "likes" nuclear weapons or not no one would deny that they exist. Nuclear weapons (A- and H-bombs) are built on one principle; that mass can be turned into energy, and the equation that exactly predicts that conversion is E = mc2. So what has that to do with Special Relativity? The answer is that E = mc2 is derived directly from Special Relativity. If relativity is wrong, then nuclear weapons would simply not work. Any theory or point of view that opposes Special Relativity must explain where E = mc 2 comes from if not relativity. Other models of relativity that contain E = mc2 exist but here we are concerned with the "standard" model as proposed by Einstein. This page explains, with minimal mathematics, how E = mc2 is derived from special relativity. In doing so it follows the same theoretical arguments that Einstein used.

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What Does the Equation Mean?

The equation tells us that energy and mass are the same thing, and how much energy is contained in a given mass, or vice versa. In other words, mass is really very tightly packed energy. That energy and mass are really the same thing is quite an extraordinary claim and seems to go against two laws that had been established by scientists before Einstein came along: The Law of the Conservation of Mass As we have seen, mass can be thought of as the quantity of matter in an object. The law of the conservation of mass states that mass is always conserved. That is, whatever we do with matter in a closed system we will always have the same amount of substance at the end. For example, if we burn a log, the wood gets lighter as the fuel in it is used up. However, if we gather together the ashes, all the tiny smoke particles and the water vapour produced and then weigh everything we find that the mass is exactly equal to the mass of the log that was burned. Mass is just mass, or so it seems, and while it can be chemically altered, such as burned, the total amount in any system remains the same.

The Law of the Conservation of Energy

But what about the energy released in burning the log? The energy released in the burning process is "chemical energy", i.e. the breaking and reforming of chemical bonds between particles. Burning the wood released the chemical energy locked up in it. No energy was created in the process and none was destroyed, it was just changed from one sort of energy (chemical bonds) to other forms of energy (heat and light). In other words the total amount of energy, just like the total amount of mass, remained the same. After many experiments, notably by the scientist for whom the unit of energy is named, James Prescott Joule (1818-1889), it was established that the total amount of energy in a closed system always remains the same. This is known as the law of the conservation of energy. What Einstein showed via his now famous equation was that mass and energy are in fact the same thing. Converting one into the other doesnt therefore violate either of the two conservation laws. Both quantities are conserved, although the state of the mass/energy may have changed. Each atom of a substance can be thought of as a little ball of tightly packed energy that can be released under certain circumstances. Likewise, we can

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take energy (such as particles of light, called photons) and turn it into matter. This was first achieved in the 1930s.

Invention of atomic bomb

The physicist Albert Einstein did not directly participate in the invention of the atomic bomb. But as we shall see, he was instrumental in facilitating its development. In 1905, as part of his Special Theory of Relativity, he made the intriguing point that a large amount of energy could be released from a small amount of matter. This was expressed by the equation E=mc2 (energy = mass times the speed of light squared). The atomic bomb would clearly illustrate this principle. But bombs were not what Einstein had in mind when he published this equation. Indeed, he considered himself to be a pacifist. In 1929, he publicly declared that if a war broke out he would "unconditionally refuse to do war service, direct or indirect... regardless of how the cause of the war should be judged." (Ronald Clark, "Einstein: The Life and Times", pg. 428). His position would change in 1933, as the result of Adolf Hitler's ascent to power in Germany. While still promoting peace, Einstein no longer fit his previous selfdescription of being an "absolute pacifist". Einstein's greatest role in the invention of the atomic bomb was signing a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt urging that the bomb be built. The splitting of the uranium atom in Germany in December 1938 plus continued German aggression led some physicists to fear that Germany might be working on an atomic bomb. Among those concerned were physicists Leo Szilard and Eugene Wigner. But Szilard and Wigner had no influence with those in power. So in July 1939 they explained the problem to someone who did: Albert Einstein. According to Szilard, Einstein said the possibility of a chain reaction "never occurred to me", altho Einstein was quick to understand the concept (Clark, pg. 669+; Spencer Weart & Gertrud Weiss Szilard, eds., "Leo Szilard: His Version of the Facts", pg. 83). After consulting with Einstein, in August 1939 Szilard wrote a letter to President Roosevelt with Einstein's signature on it. The letter was delivered to Roosevelt in October 1939 by Alexander Sachs, a friend of the President. Germany had invaded Poland the previous month; the time was ripe for action. That October the Briggs Committee was appointed to study uranium chain reactions. But the Briggs Committee moved very slowly, prompting Einstein, Szilard, and Sachs to write to FDR in March 1940, pointing again to German progress 22 | P a g e

in uranium research (Weart & Szilard, pg. 119+). In April 1940 an Einstein letter, ghost-written by Szilard, pressed Briggs Committee chairman Lyman Briggs on the need for "greater speed"
(Weart & Szilard, pg. 125+; Clark, pg. 680).

Research still proceeded slowly, because the invention of the atomic bomb seemed distant and unlikely, rather than a weapon that might be used in the current war. It was not until after the British MAUD Report was presented to FDR in October 1941 that a more accelerated pace was taken. This British document stated that an atomic bomb could be built and that it might be ready for use by late 1943, in time for use during the war.
(Richard Rhodes, "The Making of the Atomic Bomb", pg. 377+).

Einstein biographer Ronald Clark has observed that the atomic bomb would have been invented without Einstein's letters, but that without the early U.S. work that resulted from the letters, the a-bombs might not have been ready in time to use during the war on Japan.
(Clark, pg. 682-683).

The atomic bomb related work that Einstein did was very limited and he completed it in two days during December 1941. Vannevar Bush, who was coordinating the scientific work on the a-bomb at that time, asked Einstein's advice on a theoretical problem involved in separating fissionable material by gaseous diffusion. But Bush and other leaders in the atomic bomb project excluded Einstein from any other a-bomb related work. Bush didn't trust Einstein to keep the project a secret: "I am not at all sure... [Einstein] would not discuss it in a way that it should not be discussed."
(Clark, pg. 684-685; G. Pascal Zachary, "Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century", pg. 204).

As the realization of nuclear weapons grew near, Einstein looked beyond the current war to future problems that such weapons could bring. He wrote to physicist Niels Bohr in December 1944, "when the war is over, then there will be in all countries a pursuit of secret war preparations with technological means which will lead inevitably to preventative wars and to destruction even more terrible than the present destruction of life."
(Clark, pg. 698).

The atomic bombings of Japan occurred three months after the surrender of Germany, whose potential for creating a Nazi a-bomb had led Einstein to push for the development of an a-bomb for the Allies. Einstein withheld public comment on the atomic bombing of Japan until a year afterward. A 23 | P a g e

short article on the front page of the New York Times contained his view: "Prof. Albert Einstein... said that he was sure that President Roosevelt would have forbidden the atomic bombing of Hiroshima had he been alive and that it was probably carried out to end the Pacific war before Russia could participate." ("Einstein Deplores Use of Atom Bomb", New York Times, 8/19/46, pg. 1). Einstein later wrote, "I have always condemned the use of the atomic bomb against Japan."
(Otto Nathan & Heinz Norden, editors, "Einstein on Peace", pg. 589).

In November 1954, five months before his death, Einstein summarized his feelings about his role in the creation of the atomic bomb: "I made one great mistake in my life... when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification the danger that the Germans would make them."
(Clark, pg. 752).

Conclusion
The subject of this page is quite difficult to understand, even though much of the more difficult mathematics has been left to one side. The conceptual jump from the two postulates of special relativity to the equivalence of mass and energy is certainly not obvious, and it is extraordinary that Einstein proposed it long before there were any experimental results to indicate the true nature of the relationship between mass and energy. 24 | P a g e

The results of Einstein's work in this area are far more widespread than is usually thought and affects everyone on the planet. As with all science we can use the results for "good" and "bad". The reason the words "good" and "bad" are in quotes is because it all depends on your point of view. For example, you may think that nuclear power Stations (which use E = mc2 directly) are either a good or a bad thing. Likewise, depending on your point of view, nuclear weapons are either a good or a bad thing; they either stopped one war or prevented another, or they are immoral and are bound to fall into the "wrong" hands sooner or later. In recent years there have been great advances in using E = mc 2 in the medical field, particularly to treat cancer. Again though, this can be seen as either a good thing (i.e. curing a disease) or a bad thing (i.e. overburdening an already over-populated planet). Although these issues are very important it is not for pages such as this to hold an opinion either way, but to merely explain some of the science behind them. It is far too late to "un-invent" E = mc2 and the best we can do is to use it in an informed way for the things that we believe are worthwhile.

References
http://www.btinternet.com/~j.doyle/SR/Emc2/Derive.htm http://www.btinternet.com/~j.doyle/SR/Emc2/Basics.htm 25 | P a g e

http://www.drphysics.com/syllabus/energy/energy.html http://www.btinternet.com/~j.doyle/SR/Emc2/Basics.htm www.worsleyschool.net/science/files/emc2/emc2.htm http://www.relativitycollapse.com/e=mc2.html

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