On May 11, 11:14*am, "Jacques" wrote:
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.

I wonder, if someone can explain this connection. I wouldn't have been
surprised if the Joule (the unit for energy) had been established in
consequence of this formula, but I think both Joule, kg, m/s were already
existent before E=mc^2.

I learned from Wikipedia that James Joule died in 1889, thus before Einstein
discovered his famous formula, which I think happened in 1905.

Greetings
Jacques

Would you feel better if I told you that the relationship is really
between energy and a conversion factor between length and time?

The speed of light is an artifact of our choice of units that, for
whatever ridiculous reason, measures distance in meters and time in
seconds. This is, as we now know, as silly as measuring distance in
horizontal directions in feet and distance in the vertical direction
in meters. You can do that, of course, and you can *still* determine
the distance between your feet and your neighbor's head, but you'd be
using the conversion factor between feet and meters in those
calculations somewhere.

In a proper system of units, one where the same units are used for
space and time (it is spacetime, after all), then the speed of light
has value 1 and is dimensionless. In this same system of units, energy
and mass have the same units and Einstein's famous little equation
becomes even simpler.

The only reason we don't do that more commonly is habit.

PD

On May 11, 10:50*am, Igor wrote:
On May 11, 12:14*pm, "Jacques" wrote:



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.

I wonder, if someone can explain this connection. I wouldn't have been
surprised if the Joule (the unit for energy) had been established in
consequence of this formula, but I think both Joule, kg, m/s were already
existent before E=mc^2.

I learned from Wikipedia that James Joule died in 1889, thus before Einstein
discovered his famous formula, which I think happened in 1905.

Greetings
Jacques

Einstein showed that energy was proportional to mass. *The
proportionality constant just happens to be c^2, which is an arbitrary
constant, the square of the speed of light in vacuum. *That's all
there is to it. *I think you are trying to read a lot more into it
than what is actually there.

All FOUR of Einstein's various attempts to 'prove' the relationship
between mass and energy were failures in his OWN eyes (see A. I.
Miller's SRT). Newton and Leibnitz would, at least, have agreed that
these are two very different concepts. But, oh well, what do they
know; they were only the founders of physics.

On 11 mai, 13:30, "Jacques" wrote:
Dear David,

"N:dlzc D:aol T:com (dlzc)" schrieb im ...

Then let c = 1. There are units systems where that is true.

I have no problems to understand that. The consequence of it is E=m, meaning
that double mass contains double energy and half of the mass contains half
of the energy. What puzzles me is that you can multiply the mass in kg by
the square of the speed of light in m/s and you obtain exacltly the energy
in joule. How is this possible? If it is not a mere coincidence, which it is
not likely to be, how is it possible? What is the explanation of this
extraordinary fact?

I hope you understand my question.

Thanks
Jacques

The answer to this is simple.

kg simply is a complex combination of other dimensions

kg = (J s^2) / m^2

since the dimensions of the speed of light are m / s
then the dimensions of c^2 are m^2 / s^2

Now let's look at the dimensions of the equation

E = m c^2

J = ( (J s^2) / m^2 ) * m^2 / s^2

If you simplify

J = J

André Michaud

On 11 mai, 12:14, "Jacques" wrote:
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.

I wonder, if someone can explain this connection. I wouldn't have been
surprised if the Joule (the unit for energy) had been established in
consequence of this formula, but I think both Joule, kg, m/s were already
existent before E=mc^2.

I learned from Wikipedia that James Joule died in 1889, thus before Einstein
discovered his famous formula, which I think happened in 1905.

Greetings
Jacques

Maybe this possible answer will make sense to you

http://pages.videotron.com/ceber/decoupling_orbit.jpg

André Michaud

wrote:
The answer is quite simple. Please read:

http://www.geocities.com/franklinhu/emc.html

Read it as a cautionary tale. When physics seems incomprehensible,
one has a variety of choices, including study harder, rework from
basics, seek alternate explanations, ask an expect, etc. Making
up one's own physics should be low on that list.

This is part of my larger theory of everything found at:

http://www.geocities.com/franklinhu/theory.html

Now, since most people won't bother looking at either of the links,

I'm a kookologist, so I did.

the simple explanation is that E=mc^2 because to eject a positron and
electron from empty space, you have to accellerate the hidden and
bound electron/positron to the speed of light.

Do you have a reference for that?


--
--Bryan