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Unless you have lived in a cave your entire life, the above formula must
be very familiar to you.
It was formulated in the Special Theory of Relativity by the German-born
American physicist Albert Einstein (1879-1955).
E=mc²
has to be the most famous equation
of all time. Authors David Bodanis, Pete Moore (and no doubt many more)
have each written entire books concerning just this one equation.
It is the name of an Internet website.
It was shown at the beginning of
Twilight Zone television episodes ("A dimension of mind" - remember ?) and
at the beginning of "Twilight Zone: The Movie" (1983).
E=mc² was the name of a 1996 film.
E=mc² is the title of a Mariah Carey album.
Many corporations (computers,
graphics, management, etc) use this equation as part of their name.
You may have wondered what this mysterious equation is all about. It seems that knowing
how to use this equation conveys intelligence.
Basically, the equation states that matter and energy are identical.
If you could
convert a small amount of matter completely, it would yield a tremendous
amount of energy. Let's use gasoline as an example. If we burned
3 kilograms of gasoline (about 1.05 US Gallons or 3.97 liters), it would
yield 140,000,000 Joules, which is a tremendous
amount of energy. However, the burning of gasoline only produces a
chemical change.
Now let's calculate converting those 3 kilograms of gasoline completely into energy.
Finally, we will use the legendary
E=mc²
And the meaning of this equation?
The energy(e) of a mass to energy conversion equals
the mass(m) that was
converted multiplied by the
speed of light(c) squared.
If we choose
mass in kilograms and the speed of light in meters per second, then the answer
will be in Joules.
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The mass (from the above example) would be 3 kilograms and the speed of
light(c) is 299,792,458 meter per second.
So c² =
89,875,517,800,000,000 mtr²/sec²
which rounds (for purposes of this discussion) to
9 x 1016 mtr²/sec².
So, the energy equals
3 kg (mass) x 9 x 1016 mtr²/sec² (c²),
which equals 27 x 1016kg • mtr²/sec²
which equals 2.7 x 1017Joules.
This is almost 2 billion times the energy
we obtained from the "ordinary" burning of 1 gallon of gasoline.
(And we all know that is a huge amount of energy).
The calculator below is very easy to use. Input a number, click on the units this
represents and you will be shown the amount of energy if that quantity of matter were
completely converted to energy.
Numbers are displayed in scientific notation in the amount of
significant figures you specify. For easier readibility, numbers between 1,000 and -1,000
will not be in scientific notation but will still have the same precision.
You may change the number of significant figures displayed by
changing the number in the box above.
Most browsers, will display the answers properly but
if you are seeing no answers at all, enter a zero in the box above, which will
eliminate all formatting but at least you will see the answers.
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