He is a board member of the Lifeboat Foundation. Apart from his scientific work, Rothman is the author of nine books. Doubt and Certainty was chosen by the "A-List" as one of the most notable books of Rothman was the scientific editor for Sakharov's memoirs Knopf, Follow Tony Rothman on Twitter. Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. See Subscription Options. Go Paperless with Digital.
Read more from this special report: General Relativity at Get smart. Sign up for our email newsletter. Sign Up. Support science journalism. Knowledge awaits. See Subscription Options Already a subscriber? Unlocking that energy is no easy task, however. Nuclear fission is one of several ways to release a tiny bit of an atom's mass, but most of the stuff remains in the form of familiar protons, neutrons and electrons.
One way to turn an entire block of material into pure energy would be to bring it together with antimatter. Particles of matter and antimatter are the same, except for an opposite electrical charge. Bring them together, though, and they will annihilate each other into pure energy. Unfortunately, given that we don't know any natural sources of antimatter, the only way to produce it is in particle accelerators and it would take 10 million years to produce a kilogram of it.
Particle accelerators studying fundamental physics are another place where Einstein's equation becomes useful. Special relativity says that the faster something moves, the more massive it becomes. In a particle accelerator, protons are accelerated to almost the speed of light and smashed into each other.
The high energy of these collisions allows the formation of new, more massive particles than protons — such as the Higgs boson — that physicists might want to study.
Which particles might be formed and how much mass they have can all be calculated using Einstein's equation. It would be nice to think that Einstein's equation became famous simply because of its fundamental importance in making us understand how different the world really is to how we perceived it a century ago.
But its fame is mostly because of its association with one of the most devastating weapons produced by humans — the atomic bomb. You can get the right answer with classical physics, says Rothman, all in an ether theory without c being either constant or the limiting speed. However, the controversies that have been previously aroused over the issue of priority perhaps account for some of the reluctance of historians of physics to comment when contacted by physicsworld. But failure to cite it was not inconsistent with the conventions of the time.
In any event, Einstein asserted his priority for the mass—energy relationship when this was challenged by Johannes Stark who credited it in to Max Planck. Rothman told physicsworld. Close search menu Submit search Type to search.
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