Researchers at MIT performed the most rigourous test of the theory of special relativity using a bunch of stuff I don't understand. So much for trying to summarize the article

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArt...cleID=175007386

It is simple enough. The were verifying E=mc^2 in the absorption of a neutron by an atomic nucleus which creates an atom of a different atomic element.

The mass of the new atom is less than the mass of the old atom plus the mass of the neutron, so the difference in mass must be released by the atom in the form of high energy light (gamma ray radiation). By measuring the energy of this light they can veryfy that it is exactly equal to the difference in mass times the speed of light squared.

The fundamental theory of Quantum physics is :
E=mc2
where E is energy of a system
m is mass of the system
and c is speed of light (300000000 m/s)
This gives us the energy that we get by nuclear reactors or atom bombs. There the mass reduced of
Uranium (an element) is very small but gives enough energy to destroy a big city by the formula E=mc2

Other derivations of Quantum physics are

1)Time dilation
time meaeured by a high speed moving body is some what different (given by t=t/(squareroot of 1-(v2/c2)))
it helps us in establishin connection with satelites..
(sorry if the formula isnt understandable there are no keys for those mathematical exression)

2)Mass Variation
Mass of a body varies with speed.... thats why we cant cross speed of light because at that point
mass of body becomes infinite......

3)Multiverse
The theory of multi universe also comes from Quantum theory

and the count goes on


Today E=mc2 is considered as one of the fundamental laws of physics.
So it becomes very much important to to test the acurracy of the formula .For this the so many experiments are done
every year (last year in there was one in INDIA) ....... And let me tell you that this theory has always shown 100% correctness ...

This post has been edited by nikhil: May 30 2006, 08:21 AM

I won't pretend to know my quantum physics well enough to completely understand all this. BUT!!! In any experimaental approach that causes such type of colllisions between atoms, isn't heat created? And if so, is the heat measured and factored in to balance both sides of the equation?

This post has been edited by illini319: May 30 2006, 03:14 PM