Why Does E=mc2?

Einstein's energy/mass equation.  Energy is equal to the mass of an object times the speed of light squared. 

This states that mass and energy are "easily" converted from one form to another.

Easily???? I am glad you put that in quotes! 

I have not read the book but I may have to check it out.   You might try Black Holes and Time Warps by Kip Thorn.  It was a really good read, though I read it many many years ago.

Easy...

Mass is compressed energy.  A LOT of compressed energy.  There's a lot of energy in a little bit of mass.  It's that C² that's so much.  186,000 per second squarred is a BIG number!

That's why a small amount of Plutonium (20 pounds) makes for a bomb that can destroy an entire city.  Convert and release all of the mass at once into energy and...  Wow!

In a bomb only a small fraction of the energy stored as mass is converted.  25% or less as I recall.

One thing that was explained was how this is an incredibly inefficient the use of that mass, however powerful it seems to us.  The book explained, I believe, that 3 kilograms of material could power a city for 100 years if the energy was extracted with perfect efficiency.

ETA: Good grief, twice in one day.  I need to speed it up.

The answer is simple:

Seriously OP

Read this book

http://www.amazon.com/mc2-Biography-Worlds-Famous-Equation/dp/0425181642

it goes through each variable and constant in the equation in an understandable way.  If you lived nearby I'd let you borrow it since I have a copy and have read it.

I do believe it is the title to the book he was referring to not an actual question.  Then again if you had read the OP you might have know that.

Obama!

Were you late again and looking for something else to say?

Natural evolution and all.

Oh well in that case Root Beer Floats!

Yo Goosedog, was that read easier than Brian Greene's books?  I tried one of Greene's books on string theory...I thought my brain was going to explode (tough read for me...though his special on PBS a while back was fascinating and easier to understand).  How would you compare Why Does E=MC2? to Greene's books?  -thanks.

I haven't read Greene, but I'll bet, if you're brave enough to pick up a book on string theory, you'll enjoy this one.  No doubt, you're dealing with concepts that are very difficult to grasp (at least for me) and being asked to abandon things like absolute time and absolute distance.  For those of us unaccustomed to spacetime, it's weird.  But, the book uses examples that are relatively (get it!) easy to understand visually.  The discussion of the Standard Model is pretty involved, but even then I was able to get a rudimentary idea of sort of what was going on.  Even the authors acknowledge the math can be difficult and suggest if you don't enjoy the mathematics, you can skip it.  I thought it was very approachable, but I could probably stand to read it a few more times.

I don't usually read science books written for popular consumption because I'm one of the annoying people who took the advanced classes* in a lot of the stuff and blew the curve.

*As electives

However, I'm always interested in good reads, to at least peruse if not recommend. Is this book mostly explanation of the science, or is there any (for lack of a better word) human element to it?

I really dug In Search of Schroedinger's Cat because it's bloody humorous (not what comes to most people's minds when you mention physics) and interweaves the quirks of many of the players and situations with the science.

I believe there's an updated version as well because the original (or edition before) was published in the mid-'80s.

If you're already down with spacetime, quantum physics and the Standard Model, this book is probably pretty elementary.  It does have some discussion of application of the science (the clocks on GPS satellites, for example) and some historical development, but it's mainly an explanation of the science.  It still might be a worthy read to see how Cox goes about explaining it to the layperson.

That was an excellent book and yes it was funny to boot.

2 different books.

Did YOU read the OP??

The one the OP was talking about:

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-mc2-Should-Care/dp/0306818760/ref=pd_sim_b_1

The 2nd book that was recommended to the OP:  (You know, the poster you were rude too)

http://www.amazon.com/mc2-Biography-Worlds-Famous-Equation/dp/0425181642

There is a reason punctuation is important. "Seriously OP?" Has completely different connotations than "seriously OP." Considering other posters had already misunderstood the title of the thread I took it as the first in the abcense of any indication otherwise. Sometimes that is the nature/problem with electronic communicatins, lack of inflection or nonverbal cues. However, I also did not go and call JT a DB but thank you for your opinion.