Wikinventia — Atlas of discoveries and inventions · Industrial Age

Mass-energy equivalence — Albert Einstein

1905 AD · Transmission: Global
PhysicsTheoryGermanic

Albert Einstein publishes on November 21, 1905, as the last of the four papers of his Annus Mirabilis, "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?" in Annalen der Physik. The paper, only three pages long, demonstrates that if a body emits energy L in the form of radiation, its mass decreases by L/c². Contrary to popular belief, the equation E=mc² does not appear written in this form in the original paper — Einstein used the notation L for energy — but the result is mathematically equivalent and would become the most famous relation in 20th-century physics. It lays the theoretical framework that makes conceivable, almost three decades later, the release of nuclear energy through transmutation or fission reactions.

InstitutionBern Patent Office
Historical regionSwitzerland
Primary sourceEinstein, A. — "Ist die Trägheit eines Körpers von seinem Energieinhalt abhängig?". Annalen der Physik 18 (1905), 639–641.
Original languageGerman
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