Einstein's E = mc^2 mistakes
| dc.creator | Ohanian, Hans C. | |
| dc.date | 2008-05-09 | |
| dc.date | 2008-08-14 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-07T09:56:20Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-07T09:56:20Z | |
| dc.description | Although Einstein's name is closely linked with the celebrated relation E = mc2 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 and external (that is, translational) 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). | |
| dc.description | 10 pages. This revision makes a clearer distinction between how high-speed translational motion and high-speed internal motions in a system affect Einstein's first derivation of E = mc^2 | |
| dc.identifier | https://arxiv.org/abs/0805.1400 | |
| dc.identifier | http://arxiv.org/abs/0805.1400 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/166945 | |
| dc.subject | History and Philosophy of Physics | |
| dc.subject | Classical Physics | |
| dc.title | Einstein's E = mc^2 mistakes | |
| dc.type | text |