Creating A Better World

What is the meaning of E=MC2?   

Why on earth would a mathematical equation for a sophisticated theory be so famous that even nonscientists recognize it immediately? Because with that simple equation, “Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared,” Einstein shattered centuries of thinking and radically altered our view of how the world works.

One reason Einstein’s idea was so transformative was that for the first time ever, it described how energy and matter are not only related, but can be transformed back and forth into each other. Now the elegant, clear-cut world of classical, Newtonian physics would be forced to move over and make room for the fuzzy, strange, nearly unimaginable world of quantum physics.

Quantum physics is the study of how the world works on the smallest scale, at a level far smaller than the atom. And as scientists studied the nature of reality on a smaller and smaller scale, something strange began to happen: The deeper we went into reality, the more it seemed to dissolve from view. The search for the smallest known particle of matter had instead turned up distinct yet elusive little packets of energy, which physicists called quanta.

The Einstein breakthrough comes down to this: Everything is energy. A rock, a planet, a glass of water, your hand, everything you can touch, taste, or smell - it’s all made of molecules, which are made of atoms, which are made of protons and electrons and neutrons, which are made of nothing but vibrating packets of energy.   

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” Albert Einstein