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PBS Features Einstein's Famous Equation

Posted by Zonk on from the einstein's-party-years dept.

porp writes "On Tuesday, October 11th at 8PM EDT, PBS will feature a docudrama about Einstein's discovery of his famous E=mc^2 equation. The program will include details explaining those who came before him and the development of his miracle year. The pinnacle of which according to the program was his discovery that matter and energy are two sides of the same coin. Yahoo summarizes the program details in length." From the article: "Based on David Bodanis' best-seller 'E=mc2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation,' the program explores the lives of the men and women who helped develop concepts behind each term: E for energy; m for mass; c for the speed of light; and 2 for 'squared,' the multiplication of one number by itself."

8 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Re:last part of write-up was great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Since the program is intended for all audiences, including elementary school students and other non-computer science degree holders, yeah, it is useful.

  2. Re:last part of write-up was great by Microlith · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The fact that such an explanation is necessary is quite saddening. Knowlege of something so basic as what it means to square a number should be commonplace.

    It shows the willingness of people to remain ignorant of so many things, and concern themselves utterly with the trivial.

  3. WTF @ summary by Sartak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is, ostensibly, a site which features news for nerds. If you can show me a true nerd who doesn't know what E=mc^2 represents, or even what ^2 means, then I will weep. Couldn't the submitter use something a little more interesting to us?

    1. Re:WTF @ summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I submitted the story and the 'From the article' part was not in my submission. It was a Zonk addition. So you complain when the editors edit and complain when they dont. Anyway the other links are pretty informative, and the pbs link has some cool stuff. so stop being a bitch.

    2. Re:WTF @ summary by 1u3hr · · Score: 2, Insightful
      you complain when the editors edit and complain when they dont.

      As one complains when Bush does nothing, or when he does something stupid.

  4. Rolling in the grave by can56 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    When /. points to Yahoo for "news" about Einstein, and the next item is Y-news is "The Worlds Worst Bathrooms", I hope a few E, M, and C squared smite the editors.

  5. Re:Get the formula right. by Aglassis · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The relativistic total energy is the sum of the rest energy of a particle and its kinetic energy. The formula for total energy is:
    E = (mc^2)/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2).

    This can be made more intuitive if we note that momentum is defined as
    p = mv/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2).

    Hence
    E^2 - p^2c^2 = m^2c^4 (remember than 1-v^2/c^2 = (c^2-v^2)/c^2 ).

    Therefore, if v = 0, E = mc^2. In these equations, m is the rest mass of an object, v is the velocity of the object observed from your reference frame. Both the object and you cannot be accelerating (inertial reference frames--this also means no rotating, which is accelaration in physics). If you want to deal with acceleration there are much more complicated equations in general relativity.

    --
    Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
  6. Re:Get the formula right. by XchristX · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Even more pedantic: p_mu p^mu=1. There.

    --
    l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand