Did Einstein prove E= mc 2?
Abstract
Although Einstein's name is closely linked with the celebrated relation E=mc 2 between mass and energy, a critical examination of the more than half dozen "proofs" of this relation that Einstein produced over a span of forty years reveals that all these proofs suffer from mistakes. Einstein introduced unjustified assumptions, committed fatal errors in logic, or adopted low-speed, restrictive approximations. He never succeeded in producing a valid general proof applicable to a realistic system with arbitrarily large internal speeds. The first such general proof was produced by Max Laue in 1911 (for "closed" systems with a time-independent energy-momentum tensor) and it was generalized by Felix Klein in 1918 (for arbitrary time-dependent "closed" systems).
- Publication:
-
Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics
- Pub Date:
- 2009
- DOI:
- 10.1016/j.shpsb.2009.03.002
- Bibcode:
- 2009SHPMP..40..167O
- Keywords:
-
- Special relativity;
- Mass-energy relation;
- Energy-mass relation;
- Einstein;
- Laue;
- Klein