Question

What does E=mc^2 state?

Answer 1

The equivalence of mass and energy. They are two sides of the same coin, it’s just a question of converting units.

Explanation:

Higher up in physics, we actually measure particle mass using a unit of energy (called electronvolts, eV.)

The implications are vast - each kilogramme of mass ‘contains’ more energy than you could imagine, roughly a million billion Joules. This means that you could run your house for a year off the mass of a speck of dust you can hardly see (if the energy conversions were efficient.)

The term, c in the equation is the speed of light in a vacuum (`3xx10^8` m/s) and is a very large number to start with!