"Jacques" :
Hi everybody,
I have a question which bothers me since long time and maybe with your
help
I can find the answer at last. Since I heard the formule E=mc^2 for the
first time it struck me that there seems to be no logical relation between
the energy contained in a mass and the speed of light. I have no
difficulties to understand that the energy contained in a mass is
equivalent
to that mass.
My problem is: what the hell has this to do with the speed of something
else
(an electromagnetic wave). I cannot see the connection between them. These
two things: mass and energy on one side and the speed of light on the
other
side seem too disparate to me to allow a logical link between them.
Consider light clocks, already a basic tool for understanding SR, eg my page
http://home.scarlet.be/~pin12499/paratwin.htm
They can be considered as gauging tools for matter, eg a material rod bound
to a lightclock defined upon its extremities.
But the lightclock itself has features which make it behave itself as a
material object:
it has infraluminal speed (the resultant v of to and fro light speed c)
it has spatial dimension (its "rod" length)
it has proper time (its "clock" ticks)
it has energy content:
if you want a coherent clock, you take light with wave length corresponding
to the "rod" length (in the rest system equal both to and fro, viz the rod
length L; in a moving system the to and fro lengths become different L+ and
L-...); the clock has a ticktock frequency f, so that c=2Lf; the
corresponding photons have an impuls p~f~c/L, their energy content is
E=pc~c*c/L~c^2.
Now, this energy can be attributed to the material object "lightclock moving
at infraluminal speed v".
Lastly, if, like me, you get to consider light clocks not solely as a way of
***gauging*** matter, but indeed as nature's way of ***generating***
(infraluminally moving) matter, here is the answer to your question, about
linking matter's energy and c^2. In my view all mass, even rest mass, is a
compound property of elementary light clock energy ;-)
guido