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." PBS Features Einstein's Famous Equation Log in/Create an Account | Top | 156 comments | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 156 comments 0: 153 comments 1: 125 comments 2: 76 comments 3: 18 comments 4: 10 comments 5: 4 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. Get the formula right. (Score:2, Informative) by Pudusplat (574705) on Sunday October 09, @01:44AM (#13749257) E = [(p2c2) + m2c4]1/2 [ Reply to This Re:Get the formula right. (Score:5, Informative) by pmj (527674) on Sunday October 09, @01:57AM (#13749291) (http://biocurious.com/) If you are going to be pedantic, you should at least put in the right form of the equation.E=[(pc)^2 + (mc^2)^2]^(1/2) [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Get the formula right. by weilawei (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @02:01AMRe:Get the formula right. by Anonymous Coward (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @02:10AM Re:Get the formula right. (Score:4, Interesting) by aktzin (882293) on Sunday October 09, @02:22AM (#13749351) The anonymous post above already mentioned that p is for momentum and the equation is framed in a way that accounts for quantum mechanics, not just classical (Newtonian) physics. I found a good explanation here:http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Mass [laborlawtalk.com]Scroll about halfway down to the section header "Relativistic relation among mass, energy and momentum".By the way, IANAP (I am not a physicist) but I had fun taking physics in college as part of my computer science requirements. And by funny coincidence this post is actually related to my sig. I don't remember where I first saw that (it was in college many moons ago). I always thought it was funny and clever, a good tip of the hat to Mr. Shakespeare, and a good way to describe the universe. [ Reply to This | Parent Re:Get the formula right. (Score:5, Informative) by mako1138 (837520) on Sunday October 09, @03:01AM (#13749421) Note that the page you mention is a mirror of the Wikipedia article on mass. [wikipedia.org] And it doesn't really have anything to do with quantum mechanics - we are taught non-relativistic (and time-independent) QM in undergrad courses.The main things to take from E^2 - (pc)^2 = (mc^2)^2:1. Set the mass m equal to 0. We get E = pc, or p = E/c. Thus momentum is defined for massless particles in special relativity. Newtonian mechanics can't handle this correctly.2. Set the momentum p equal to 0. We get E = mc^2, popularly known as energy-mass equivalence. There's subtleties to it, though; see Relativistic mass [wikipedia.org]. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Get the formula right. by Stalyn (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @06:22AMRe:Get the formula right. by Jackmn (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @10:06AMRe:Get the formula right. by Jackmn (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @10:09AMRe:Get the formula right. by the morgawr (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @11:56AMRe:Get the formula right. by Aglassis (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @03:16AM It's a semantics, the formula WAS right (Score:5, Interesting) by Newton IV (666922) on Sunday October 09, @03:36AM (#13749490) Nah, the formula is right E=mc^2, except the mass m is the RELATIVISTIC mass, defined as m_0/sqrt(1-(v/c)^2). m_0 here is the mass of the body at rest.But indeed, the rest mass m_0 is a better quantity to use.See for examplehttp://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/S R/mass.html [ucr.edu] [ Reply to This | ParentRe:It's a semantics, the formula WAS right by Aglassis (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @04:02AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:It's a semantics, the formula WAS right by XchristX (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @04:34AMRe:It's a semantics, the formula WAS right by Jesus 2.0 (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @10:58AMRe:It's a semantics, the formula WAS right by XchristX (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @01:41PMRe:Get the formula right. by joachimp (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @03:36AMRe:Get the formula right. by XchristX (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @04:27AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Get the formula right. by ScriptedReplay (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @02:57AMRe:Get the formula right. by ichin4 (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @04:40AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Meaning of "summarises program details in length" (Score:4, Funny) by Mostly a lurker (634878) on Sunday October 09, @01:45AM (#13749258) Does this mean it tells you how long the program lasts? Or does it perhaps indicate that E=mc^2 contains six characters? Surely the editors would have picked up on nonsense implying a lengthy precis of the program. [ Reply to This Well... (Score:1) by ScaryMonkey (886119) on Sunday October 09, @01:47AM (#13749268) If it's as informative and entertaining as Yahoo Serious's "Young Einstein," I'm sold! [ Reply to ThisRe:Well... by DeafByBeheading (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @01:52AMRe:Well... by Destoo (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @08:34AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. True origin of the famous equation (Far Side) (Score:4, Funny) by macklin01 (760841) on Sunday October 09, @01:57AM (#13749294) (http://easybmp.sourceforge.net/) Your desk is all squared away. Yep, all squaaaaaaaaaaaared away. (I couldn't find an image to link to--sorry! [ Reply to ThisRe:True origin of the famous equation (Far Side) by Anonymous Coward (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @02:00AMRe:True origin of the famous equation (Far Side) by NanoGator (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @03:51AMRe:True origin of the famous equation (Far Side) by Destoo (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @08:42AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. WTF @ summary (Score:4, Insightful) by Sartak (589317) on Sunday October 09, @02:07AM (#13749309) (http://sartak.katron.org/) 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? [ Reply to ThisRe:WTF @ summary by Anonymous Coward (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @02:25AMRe:WTF @ summary by Anonymous Coward (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @07:51AMRe:WTF @ summary by 1u3hr (Score:3)Sunday October 09, @01:06PMRead the book by 1ad (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @02:44AMRe:WTF @ summary by nametaken (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @03:08AMRe:WTF @ summary by dos_dude (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @06:07AMRe:WTF @ summary by elgatozorbas (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @06:33AMRe:WTF @ summary by TrentL (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @08:32AMRe:WTF @ summary by ajpr (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @10:51AMRe:WTF @ summary by GrungyLotG (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @12:49PMRe:WTF @ summary by Geoffreyerffoeg (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @02:09PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. Buying my own copy (Score:2) by Douglas Simmons (628988) on Sunday October 09, @02:07AM (#13749310) (http://assambassador.com/) Anybody know off hand how/where I can buy this and other older PBS productions? Much obliged.. [ Reply to ThisRe:Buying my own copy by TheCarlMau (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @02:18AMRe:Buying my own copy by kegwell (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @03:14AMRe:Buying my own copy by Douglas Simmons (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @04:15AM A little help... (Score:1) by jswalter9 (695759) <jeff.s.walter@gmail.com> on Sunday October 09, @02:11AM (#13749326) I seem to remember that a group of physicists disproved the formula. Can anyone remember whom? [ Reply to ThisRe:A little help... by larsu (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @02:46AMRe:A little help... by Asprin (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @07:40AMRe:A little help... by the morgawr (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @12:14PM Animaniacs (Score:4, Funny) by thebdj (768618) on Sunday October 09, @02:13AM (#13749332) (Last Journal: Thursday September 22, @04:18PM) Everyone knows that it was the Wacko Brothers and their sister Dot selling kid scout cookies to Einstein [tv.com] that helped him create E=mc^2, by singing the Acme song. [ Reply to ThisRe:Animaniacs by thebdj (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @02:16AM Already out on digitaldistractions (Score:2, Informative) by mailman-zero (730254) on Sunday October 09, @02:15AM (#13749337) (http://dowler.blogsite.org/) If I'm not mistaken, this is the same documentary as here [digitaldistractions.org].It's a pretty interesting show. [ Reply to This Get it right! (Score:1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09, @02:15AM (#13749338) Pfff, everyone knows how he developed his famous formula:E=mA^2 ....NoE=mB^2 ....NoE=mC^2 ....EurekaThat or he stole it from the patent office [ Reply to This Neat but one burning question (Score:2, Informative) by zenst (558964) on Sunday October 09, @02:16AM (#13749341) (http://cotse.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday November 10, @12:34PM) Given scientests have managed to make light go slower and indications that some of the universes constants have not been fixed thoughout its lifetime and are constantly changing albeit on such a small scale we dont notice. Could you get a different value for E from the same mass by varying the speed of light, and if light can get slower would that potentialy mean that Energy is being lost or is that touching into relativity.--If life was simple, there simply wouldn't be any life-- [ Reply to ThisRe:Neat but one burning question by khellendros1984 (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @02:49AMRe:Neat but one burning question by Detritus (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @02:53AM"varying" speeds of light by Quadraginta (Score:3)Sunday October 09, @03:04AMRe:"varying" speeds of light by bjbyrne (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @03:20AMclarification... by Quadraginta (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @03:41AMRe: more clarification... by pbhj (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @06:47AMRe:"varying" speeds of light by 1u3hr (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @01:14PMRe:"varying" speeds of light by poopdeville (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @03:36AMRe:Neat but one burning question by orbitalia (Score:3)Sunday October 09, @09:00AMRe:Neat but one burning question by my_haz (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @12:02PMRe:Neat but one burning question by Vellmont (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @02:12PM Rolling in the grave (Score:2, Insightful) by can56 (698639) on Sunday October 09, @02:18AM (#13749343) 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. [ Reply to This I've seen this already I think (Score:4, Interesting) by FunkyRat (36011) <funkyrat@gma i l . com> on Sunday October 09, @02:27AM (#13749360) (Last Journal: Tuesday May 04, @12:27PM) If this is the same program as this [channel4.com] Channel4 production, then I highly recommend it. Although undoubtedly it has nothing to offer the Slashdot crowd from a science standpoint, the human face it puts on scientists we all too often only know from their work is excellent. [ Reply to ThisRe:I've seen this already I think by Metatron (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @03:01AMI really enjoyed it by FunkyRat (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @03:22AMRe:I really enjoyed it by Metatron (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @04:53AMRe:I've seen this already I think by Andrew Ford (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @06:27AM The real question is (Score:2) by johansalk (818687) on Sunday October 09, @02:30AM (#13749366) Is it really that important, or is it because it's popular culture media-friendly? [ Reply to This Seen it already (Score:2, Informative) by Gabhlan (531413) <gabhlan@g m a i l . c om> on Sunday October 09, @02:37AM (#13749381) (http://gabhlan.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/) It was on over here in Scotland a few weeks ago. Nothing to get worked up about, it's been hideously dumbed down as you'd expect of anything on TV these days. [ Reply to This Contraversy (Score:1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09, @02:39AM (#13749387) Why wasn't it mentioned on the program that relativity is "just a theory", and that there is "intense debate" over it, as it seems to happen in biology? [ Reply to This1 reply beneath your current threshold. Rest Mass (Score:3, Informative) by Joffy (905928) on Sunday October 09, @02:43AM (#13749394) People should realize that the M in e=mc^2 is not the widely known idea of mass. Most people think that a bowling ball that weighs 10 pounds has a set mass no matter what. But in Einstein's equation mass is more like inertia. A moving bowling ball has more mass than one at rest. So you can not simply take a 10 kilogram object and multiply it by the speed of light squared to get its energy. This means you must first complete the equation for m first, which I do not know off hand. So the idea of mass that most people know is called rest mass. It took me a while to realize that they meant an object could increase mass but gain no atoms or extra "material". Since most objects we can see and touch don't even go 1% the speed of light, we never notice this increase. For almost all practical cases(even a plan going mach 3) we can consider its mass to be rest mass and still be accurate to within many many decimal places. [ Reply to ThisRe:Rest Mass by DirePickle (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @03:07AMRe:Rest Mass by DirePickle (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @12:38PMRe:Rest Mass by croto (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @03:11AMRe:Rest Mass by Anonymous Coward (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @03:53AMRe:Rest Mass by cynical kane (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @06:51AMc^2 unnecessary? by cgenman (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @01:43PMRe:c^2 unnecessary? by Geoffreyerffoeg (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @02:26PMRe:Rest Mass by mhore (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @03:02PMRe:Rest Mass by Geoffreyerffoeg (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @03:09PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. PBS Scientific Documentaries (Score:2) by crumbz (41803) <<remove_spam>mail351246NO@SPAMpop.net> on Sunday October 09, @03:10AM (#13749432) (http://slashdot.org/) Is it me, or have the PBS documentaries such as Nova and Nature been dumbed down over the past decade or so. I recently started watching Nova again and the sheer repetition of the main thesis, sometime three or four times in a one hour show, is annoying and pedantic. Nova especially seems to be cranked up on the *gee whiz* factor and less substansive on the actual science. [ Reply to This1 reply beneath your current threshold. Einstein's Wife (Score:2) by Donny Smith (567043) on Sunday October 09, @03:43AM (#13749507) Which one? Second? I'm not sure.Anyway, it's a good complementary read:http://www.pbs.org/opb/einsteinswife/science/index .htm [pbs.org] [ Reply to ThisRe:Einstein's Wife by ArcSecond (Score:3)Sunday October 09, @06:03AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. But the real question... (Score:2) by servognome (738846) on Sunday October 09, @03:47AM (#13749518) Is this episode of Nova brought to us by a grant by the Chubb Corporation? [ Reply to This Multiplication by itself?!?!? (Score:2) by brian0918 (638904) on Sunday October 09, @06:22AM (#13749819) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Brian0918) Wait, now numbers can be multiplied by themselves??? What a wild, fantastic world we live in!!!Thank you Einstein for making such a marvelous discovery!!!I'm still iffy about the name.. "square"? Is this geometry or astrologics? Get it straight, please. [ Reply to This WATCH IT! (Score:2) by carldot67 (678632) on Sunday October 09, @06:27AM (#13749829) We had it in the UK.Its brilliant. [ Reply to This Measurement Units? (Score:2) by barfy (256323) on Sunday October 09, @07:07AM (#13749903) So I have a question, in what units do we measure C? The reason I ask, is does the formula still work if C is measured in units of C? Because in that case C^2 == 1.Or does C have to be in units relative to the resting state of the observer? And in that case does the energy in a given mass by another observer change . And still what is to say that an observer doesn't go around talking in stellar units rather than anything smaller than that (again c^2 1)? [ Reply to ThisRe:Measurement Units? by Jamu (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @08:26AMRe:Measurement Units? by fgb (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @08:30AMRe:Measurement Units? by Daniel Dvorkin (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @11:17AM UKTV (Score:1) by BeCre8iv (563502) on Sunday October 09, @08:15AM (#13750027) This was on UK terrestrial a few weeks back - well worth watching [ Reply to This Simple derivation of this equation (Score:2) by rbarreira (836272) on Sunday October 09, @08:51AM (#13750109) (http://wod.home.dyndns.org/ | Last Journal: Friday April 29, @07:23PM) From this page [thefinaltheory.com]: p = E/c -- momentum of light, p, equals its energy                                            content divided by its speedp = mc -- momentum of light, stated in terms of its                                              classical momentum, mass x speedE/c = mc -- equating the two momentum terms in                                              the two lines aboveE = mc^2 -- rearranging the above line gives                                              Einstein's famous equation [ Reply to This'Simple' is right by 26199 (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @09:31AMRe:'Simple' is right by 26199 (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @09:33AMRe:Simple derivation of this equation by ZombieWomble (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @09:43AMRe:Simple derivation of this equation by ZombieWomble (Score:1)Sunday October 09, @09:45AMRe:Simple derivation of this equation by RichardX (Score:2)Sunday October 09, @11:58AM Squares With Geometry (Score:2) by Doc Ruby (173196) on Sunday October 09, @09:04AM (#13750141) (http://slashdot.org/~Doc%20Ruby/journal | Last Journal: Thursday March 31, @02:48PM) I've always wondered why the constant term is the square of the speed of light (in a vacuum). A square is almost like the "++" operator, indicating that the value is the same, but in "the next higher dimension". So the amount of energy is thereby exactly equivalent to the amount of matter, but in "the next higher dimension" of space, scaled up by a velocity of the very phenomenon that seems to straddle our matter/energy distinction. What is the geometric root of that enigmatic relationship? [ Reply to This