e=mc2: 103 years later, Einstein's proven right
Thu Nov 20, 6:56 pm ET

PARIS (AFP) – It's taken more than a century, but Einstein's celebrated
formula e=mc2 has finally been corroborated, thanks to a heroic
computational effort by French, German and Hungarian physicists.

A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France's Centre for
Theoretical Physics, using some of the world's mightiest supercomputers,
have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and
neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms.

According to the conventional model of particle physics, protons and
neutrons comprise smaller particles known as quarks, which in turn are
bound by gluons.

The odd thing is this: the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks
is only five percent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 percent?

The answer, according to the study published in the US journal Science
on Thursday, comes from the energy from the movements and interactions
of quarks and gluons.

In other words, energy and mass are equivalent, as Einstein proposed in
his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905.

The e=mc2 formula shows that mass can be converted into energy, and
energy can be converted into mass.

By showing how much energy would be released if a certain amount of mass
were to be converted into energy, the equation has been used many times,
most famously as the inspirational basis for building atomic weapons.

But resolving e=mc2 at the scale of sub-atomic particles -- in equations
called quantum chromodynamics -- has been fiendishly difficult.

"Until now, this has been a hypothesis," France's National Centre for
Scientific Research (CNRS) said proudly in a press release.

"It has now been corroborated for the first time."

For those keen to know mo the computations involve "envisioning space
and time as part of a four-dimensional crystal lattice, with discrete
points spaced along columns and rows."

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Fortunately for Einstein, he never visited rec.boats and read the
oozings of Herring, Loogy, DK, ThreeWhiteSheets, or Florida Jim.