Concept

Mass–energy equivalence

Summary
In physics, mass–energy equivalence is the relationship between mass and energy in a system's rest frame, where the two quantities differ only by a multiplicative constant and the units of measurement. The principle is described by the physicist Albert Einstein's formula: E = mc^2. In a reference frame where the system is moving, its relativistic energy and relativistic mass (instead of rest mass) obey the same formula. The formula defines the energy E of a particle in its rest frame as the product of mass (m) with the speed of light squared (c2). Because the speed of light is a large number in everyday units (approximately ), the formula implies that a small amount of "rest mass", measured when the system is at rest, corresponds to an enormous amount of energy, which is independent of the composition of the matter. Rest mass, also called invariant mass, is a fundamental physical property that is independent of momentum, even at extreme speeds approachin
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