Volume 11 , Issue 30

E=mc? Explained

E=mc? Explained -- One of Albert 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):
= 0.111 x 300,000,000 x 300,000,000
= 10,000,000,000,000,000 Joules

one Joule is about the energy released when you drop a textbook to the floor. But the amount of energy in 30 grams of hydrogen atoms is equivalent to burning hundreds of thousands of gallons of gasoline!
NOVA Einstein's Big Idea E=mc? Explained
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