One Hundred Years of E=MC2

Eric Ward writes "To mark the one hundredth anniversary of Einstein's famous equation, E=mc2, NOVA has gone live this month with a Web site that features exclusive content and podcasts from ten of the worlds top physicists. This once-in-a-lifetime gathering of top scientists such as S. James Gates, Jr., Brian Greene, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Nobel Laureate Sheldon Glashow simplify what the equation means to our world today and the effect it has had on their careers. NOVA online also details how Einstein grappled with the implications of his revolutionary theory of relativity and came to a startling conclusion: that mass and energy are one, related by the formula E=mc2. Viewers will also find lesson plans through the award-winning NOVA Teacher's Guide and a special library resource kit."

Comments

Time for a physics limerick

[utopianfiat]

There once was a fencer named frisk,
whose movement exceedingly brisk
so quick was his action
the Fitzgerald Contraction
reduced his rapier to a disc

Re:Time for a physics limerick

[Rei]

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?

A1: To actualize its potential

A2: Unknown; the fact is, most of the poultry in the universe seem to be missing

A3: It didn't. It simply moved its legs standing still, while the road passed underneath.

A4: It didn't cross the road - it simply returned to where it started, but was momentarily moving backward in time.

A5: There exist numerous parallel universes in which the same chicken is in differing stages of crossing the road. Only when one of the chickens has concluded crossing the road do their wave functions coalesce.

A6: Chickens at rest tend to stay tend to stay at rest, and chickens in motion tend to cross the road. Given an equal and opposite reaction, clearly, it was pushed onto the road by another chicken who consequently moved away from the road.

A7: The chicken never actually crossed the road (a task impossible for a chicken of it's energy level). Instead, through uncertainties in its position, it found itself tightly clustered in with other chickens inside a coop just beyond the road, and unable to escape and return to its starting side.

Re:Time for a physics limerick

[utopianfiat]

A8: You can never definitely measure why the chicken crossed the road as long as you can definitely measure whether or not the chicken has crossed the road.

A9: Scrodinger's Chicken is <blink>not</blink> dead.

Re:Time for a physics limerick

[The_Rook]

Q: why did the chicken cross the mobius strip?

A: to get to the other...uh...

Happy 100th

[Robotron23]

In response to this momentous occasion...I can only quote the great MC Hawking. :)

"I explode like a bomb. No-one is spared. My power is my mass times the speed of light squared."

Re:Happy 100th

[CrazyTalk]

And to quote something I learned in high school physics,

Twinkle, Twinkle little star
Power = I squared R

Hazzah!

[Gunny101]

#!/usr/bin/perl my $e = (mc * 2); print "$e";

Albert Einstein's performance review, 1905

[alispguru]

By Peter Norvig.

Don't miss the rest of his site while you're there.

If Einstein Was So Smart...

[Anonymous Coward]

"If Einstein was so smart how come people only call you 'Einstein' when you do something really stupid?" - Brian Regan

One Hundred Years of E=MC2

[iapetus]

So what was E equal to in 1904?

Re:One Hundred Years of E=MC2

[capicu]

Whoa really? So even before Einstein, mass was proportional to energy? That really takes him down a few notches in my estimation.
Well, at least I can still look up to Newton for giving us the gift of gravity.

Re:One Hundred Years of E=MC2

[Shazow]

So what was E equal to in 1904?

e = 2.71828 18284 59045 23536 02874 7135...

Or are we being case-sensitive? :D

- shazow

Re:It is E=mc^2

[John Seminal]

But m = \gamma m_0, where \gamma = 1/sqrt(1 - \beta^2), and, of course \beta = v/c.

I.e., E = mc^2 = m_0 c^2 / sqrt(1 - (v^2/c^2))

Oh, m_0 is rest mass, in case you didn't know that, and m is the relativistic mass.

Do you get laid much? I can just imagine the bar talk.

So, ladies, did you know that if. wait. I need my blackboard. Would you mind pushing the pints down a little, I need more space to show you this. Screw it, lets just go back to my TA office. I sure hope professor Greennuts is not there. He steals all my women with his theory of relativity- they're not related to him. bada-boom-bang.

I admit it, I am crazy and my mind entertains me.

BTW, I am shocked you would put a link on slashdot to your picture. You will have to let us know if this has brought you any nerd on nerd love?

Re:Plagiarist?

[commodoresloat]

now-anonymous Italian physicists: Olinto De Pretto comes to mind

This word "anonymous." I don't think it means what you think it means.

Einstein was so wrong

[__aamcgs2220]

As my mass has gone up, my energy has gone down. What more proof do you need?

Quantum debugging

[stengah]

Another interesting fact, derived from empirical analysis : in a Windows field, light speed is negative.This explain the interesting "expanding copy time" (aka "30 seconds left... 4 centuries left...") experienced by most Windows users.Another explaination would be a schrödinger-like effect induced by closed source.

Obligatory lame physics joke:

[plehmuffin]

100th anniversary? Yeah, but it's all relative

Re:Obligatory lame physics joke:

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Exactly. It's only 100 years in this frame of reference.

Re:What if E = mc^2.0000000001?

[VoidWraith]

You can't get that backwards. However, it depends on which twin you call stationary. If you called the rocket stationary, then it would seem the twin that stayed home would be young.

Relativity, after all...

This story is a dupe

[commodoresloat]

found this in the slashdot archives

Posted by CmdrTaco on 1:05 Friday 18 August 1905
from the what-about-brownian-motion dept.
Albert Einstein writes ...

Re:Using ints?

[Negadecimal]

Floats? Have you never heard of quantum mechanics? Duh!

God does not use rand() on the universe.

Einstein married his sister

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently he had a theory that males were more attracted to the breasts of their siblings. He called it the theory of relative-titty.

Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week.

Re:Plagiarist?

[David Horn]

I hate to be a killjoy, but I always thought a brownian motion was what happened in your pants after you've had too much to drink and had a sudden scare...

mathmatical explaination for slashdot effect

[adnausium]

(geeks+intelectuals)-(1st posters+flamebaiters)*(low bandwidth)= "/.effect" ...somebody better be able to do way better than this BTW....

Re:Plagiarist?

[ndansmith]

Like a professor of mine said:

"When you are a student, it's called plagiarism; when you are a professor, it's called scholarship."

But for all I know he ripped that quote off from someone else . . .

Re:Plagiarist?

[borawjm]

einstein was awarded the nobel prize for his brownian paper. relativity, published the same year, was all but ignored.

All but ignored? I would say that the brownian motion is in full effect at my office.

Re:Using ints?

[idontgno]

God does not use rand() on the universe.

Not only does God definitely use rand() on the universe, but He sometimes confuses us by seeding it with /dev/random.