Mass-energy equivalence
See also: Mass-energy equivalence In physics, mass–energy equivalence is the concept that the mass of a slow moving body is a measure of its energy content. The mass of a body as measured on a scale is always equal to the total energy inside, multiplied by a constant c2 that changes the units appropriately:In addition to the papers referenced above—which give derivations of the Lorentz transformation and describe the foundations of special relativity—Einstein also wrote at least four papers giving heuristic arguments for the equivalence (and transmutability) of mass and energy, for E = mc2.
Mass-energy equivalence is a consequence of special relativity. The energy and momentum, which are separate in Newtonian mechanics, form a four-vector In the theory of relativity, a four-vector is a vector in a four-dimensional real vector space, called Minkowski space. It differs from a vector in that it can be transformed by Lorentz transformations. The usage of the four-vector name tacitly assumes that its components refer to a standard basis. The components transform between these bases as in relativity, and this relates the time component (the energy) to the space components (the momentum) in a nontrivial way. For an object at rest, the energy-momentum four-vector is (E, 0, 0, 0): it has a time component which is the energy, and three space components which are zero. By changing frames with a Lorentz transformation in the x direction with a small value of the velocity v, the energy momentum four-vector becomes (E, Ev/c2, 0, 0). The momentum is equal to the energy divided by c2 times the velocity. So the newtonian mass of an object, which is the ratio of the momentum to the velocity for slow velocities, is equal to E/c2.
The energy and momentum are properties of matter, and it is impossible to deduce that they form a four-vector just from the two basic postulates of special relativity by themselves, because these don't talk about matter, they only talk about space and time. The derivation therefore requires some additional physical reasoning. In his 1905 paper, Einstein used the additional principles that Newtonian mechanics should hold for slow velocities, so that there is one energy scalar and one three-vector momentum at slow velocities, and that the conservation law for energy and momentum is exactly true in relativity. Furthermore, he assumed that the energy/momentum of light transforms like the energy/momentum of massless particles, which was known to be true from Maxwell's equations.[18] The first of Einstein's papers on this subject was Does the Inertia of a Body Depend upon its Energy Content? in 1905.[19] Although Einstein's argument in this paper is nearly universally accepted by physicists as correct, even self-evident, many authors over the years have suggested that it is wrong.[20] Other authors suggest that the argument was merely inconclusive because it relied on some implicit assumptions.[21]
Einstein acknowledged the controversy over his derivation in his 1907 survey paper on special relativity. There he notes that it is problematic to rely on Maxwell's equations for the heuristic mass-energy argument. The argument in his 1905 paper can be carried out with the emission of any massless particles, but the Maxwell equations are implicitly used to make it obvious that the emission of light in particular can be achieved only by doing work. To emit electromagnetic waves, all you have to do is shake a charged particle, and this is clearly doing work, so that the emission is of energy.[22][23]
<<Table of Contents Special relativity (also known as the special theory of relativity or STR) is the physical theory of measurement in inertial frames of reference proposed in 1905 by Albert Einstein (after the considerable and independent contributions of Hendrik Lorentz, Henri Poincaré and others) in the paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" | Next>> | Show All>>
