Einstein's E = mc2 Mistakes
| Scientific Paper | |
|---|---|
| Title | Einstein's E = mc2 Mistakes |
| Author(s) | Hans C Ohanian |
| Keywords | Relativity, Mass |
| Published | 2008 |
| No. of pages | 10 |
Abstract
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 speeds. The first such general proof was produced by Max Laue in 1911 (for "closed" systems with a timeindependent energy-momentum tensor) and it was generalized by Felix Klein in 1918 (for arbitrary timedependent "closed" systems).