The Compton effect as an experimental approach toward relativistic mass

A way of presenting an experiment on the Compton effect to undergraduate students is suggested. First, a nonrelativistic analysis of this effect accompanied by an excellent approximation to the resulting nonrelativistic scattering formula is made. It is then shown how the discrepancy between the nonrelativistic predictions and the experimental results leads in a fairly plausible way to the relativistic form of the energy conservation law, the relativistic mass-velocity dependence, and even the formula ΔE=Δmc² .