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E=mc2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation | 
| Author: David Bodanis
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy Used: $2.39
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Avg. Customer Rating:  110 reviews
Sales Rank: 34814
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 4.8 x 1
ISBN: 0425181642
Dewey Decimal Number: 530.11
EAN: 9780425181645
ASIN: 0425181642
Publication Date: October 9, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: The book is clean but may have highlights.
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Amazon.com Review
E=mc2. Just about everyone has at least heard of Albert Einstein's formulation of 1905, which came into the world as something of an afterthought. But far fewer can explain his insightful linkage of energy to mass. David Bodanis offers an easily grasped gloss on the equation. Mass, he writes, "is simply the ultimate type of condensed or concentrated energy," whereas energy "is what billows out as an alternate form of mass under the right circumstances." Just what those circumstances are occupies much of Bodanis's book, which pays homage to Einstein and, just as important, to predecessors such as Maxwell, Faraday, and Lavoisier, who are not as well known as Einstein today. Balancing writerly energy and scholarly weight, Bodanis offers a primer in modern physics and cosmology, explaining that the universe today is an expression of mass that will, in some vastly distant future, one day slide back to the energy side of the equation, replacing the "dominion of matter" with "a great stillness"--a vision that is at once lovely and profoundly frightening. Without sliding into easy psychobiography, Bodanis explores other circumstances as well; namely, Einstein's background and character, which combined with a sterling intelligence to afford him an idiosyncratic view of the way things work--a view that would change the world. --Gregory McNamee
Product Description
Already climbing the bestseller lists-and garnering rave reviews-this "little masterpiece"* sheds brilliant light on the equation that changed the world.
"This is not a physics book. It is a history of where the equation [E=mc2] came from and how it has changed the world. After a short chapter on the equation's birth, Bodanis presents its five symbolic ancestors in sequence, each with its own chapter and each with rich human stories of achievement and failure, encouragement and duplicity, love and rivalry, politics and revenge. Readers meet not only famous scientists at their best and worst but also such famous and infamous characters as Voltaire and Marat...Bodanis includes detailed, lively and fascinating back matter...His acknowledgements end, 'I loved writing this book.' It shows."(The Cleveland Plain Dealer)
"E=mc2, focusing on the 1905 theory of special relativity, is just what its subtitle says it is: a biography of the world's most famous equation, and it succeeds beautifully. For the first time, I really feel that I understand the meaning and implications of that equation, as Bodanis takes us through each symbol separately, including the = sign...there is a great 'aha!' awaiting the lay reader." (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
"'The equation that changed everything' is familiar to even the most physics-challenged, but it remains a fuzzy abstraction to most. Science writer Bodanis makes it a lot more clear." (Discover)
"Excellent...With wit and style, he explains every factor in the world's most famous and least understood equation....Every page is rich with surprising anecdotes about everything from Einstein's youth to the behind-the-scenes workings of the Roosevelt administration. Here's a prediction: E=mc2 is one of those odd, original, and handsomely written books that will prove more popular than even its publisher suspects." (Nashville Scene)
"You'll learn more in these 300 pages about folks like Faraday, Lavoisier, Davy and Rutherford than you will in many a science course...a clearly written, astonishingly understandable book that celebrates human achievement and provides some idea of the underlying scientific orderliness and logic that guides the stars and rules the universe." (Parade )
"Bodanis truly has a gift for bringing his subject matter to life." (Library Journal [starred review] )
"Entertaining...With anecdotes and illustrations, Bodanis effectively opens up E=mc2 to the widest audience." (Booklist )
"Accessible...he seeks, and deserves, many readers who know no physics. They'll learn a handful-more important, they'll enjoy it, and pick up a load of biographical and cultural curios along the way." (Publishers Weekly)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 105 more reviews...
 misses the point October 4, 2008
The point is that ALL energy has a mass equivalence, not just nuclear/subatomic energy. Einstein knew this, although he had trouble proving it (see Einstein's Miraculous Year). By repeatedly and incorrectly stating that only nuclear/subatomic energy has a mass equivalence, Bodanis misses the great universality and majesty of Einstein's equation. He should have shown his book to a physicist before sending it to the publisher. As for me, I'll stick to reading science books written by scientists.
 E=Excellent September 29, 2008
Amazing story of the discovery and then application of the most powerful equation the world has known. Beautifully written by David Bodanis the book provides very good scientific understanding to the educated layman but also presents in a way that makes it difficult to put down. The chapter on the microsecond by microsecond events when the first atomic bomb were dropped are truly frightening. The chapter on Lise Meitner and her nephew on holiday in Sweeden discovering nuclear fission was a true detective story. The final chapter (Where are they now) gave some happy and sad stories to the many characters of the book. Some who did so much but may not have received credit due to their unconventional education (Faraday), gender (Payne, Meitner) or skin color (Chandrasekhar) begin to get their deserved credit. Finally, the man at the center of it all who unwillingly became a popular icon spent much of his later years trying to live up to his earlier scientific fame from the special and general theories of relativity. The book has so much more in it but I believe I will need to read it again as it contains so much!
E=MC Squared August 6, 2008
Slim volume outlining at a popular level what E=MC2 means, how it came to be, and how its been applied in practical and theoretical physics.
Mildly fun, mildly informative. I now understand that energy equals mass, and just how simple and powerful the formula is.
The Hobo Philosopher July 4, 2008
I would say that this is a history book about science and scientists - not a science book. It is history "lite." The author found a cleaver and creative way to talk about science and scientists - to expose the novice reader of science to many people and historical situations that he may not have been aware of. I had previously read about most everyone who was mentioned in the book. As other reviewers have pointed out the author often oversimplifies an issue and many of his statements could be debated - and are debated. But for a lite read for a non-scientist this book is a reasonable first exposure. If you want to become more of an expert one would have to go a lot deeper. Even the history involved gets more complicated than this brief outline. But, it was fun.
Matterless Motion Wins Again June 29, 2008
If you are looking for the real biography of E=mc2, this isn't it. If you are looking for the usual glorification of Einstein and cohorts, this will do. In tune with the second objective rather than the first, there is usual absence of the long history of the equation, which stems from Newton's implication that matter and the motion of matter somehow were related. Hegel's dictum on inseparability ("Just as there is no motion without matter, so there is no matter without motion") is nowhere to be found. And like Einstein's 1905 paper, there is little or no mention of those, such as Preston, Poincare, and De Pretto, who were important in the development of the equation. Like Einstein, Bodanis completely omits Hasenoehrl's work, which was published in the same journal a year earlier, with a very similar equation (m = (8/3)E/c2) and a very similar title ("On the radiation of the bodies in motion" vs. Einstein's "On the electrodynamics of the bodies in motion"). Like most modern physicists and cosmologists, Bodanis perpetuates the conception that matter can, with a wave of the magic wand, turn into "pure energy." One never finds out exactly what that "pure energy" is supposed to be. The fact is, that the equation merely describes the conversion of one type of the motion of matter into another type of the motion of matter. This can be done with the use of classical mechanics simply by assuming that the supposed "empty space" of Einstein contains matter capable of receiving motion released from the atom during fission or fusion. Einstein's premature rejection of the ether therefore gave scientific credence to the idea of "matterless motion," an oxymoron near and dear to the hearts and "souls" of the religiously trained and mystically inclined populace. With that background, Einstein could speculate that space was nevertheless "curved" even though it supposedly contained nothing at all. The speculation has continued to be evermore rampant and ridiculous, with the whole universe supposedly exploding out of nothing, 13 dimensional "strings," and the equally oxymoronic parallel and multi-universes. On the plus side, Bodanis has some interesting gossip about the physics establishment before and after 1905. He tries better than most to give credit for the women, such as du Chatelet, who made significant, mostly unheralded contributions mostly to the scientific end of things. I didn't mind the advertised dumbed-down aspect of the book so much as the fact that we never really found out what it was that matter was turning into. Bodanis fell for the indeterministic "pure energy" propaganda hook line and sinker. Penance for writing this book should include repeating Hegel's most important assumption out loud 100 times: "Just as there is no motion without matter, so there is no matter without motion," "Just as there is no motion without matter, so there is no matter without motion"... To see what happens when that assumption is used consistently, see The Scientific Worldview: Beyond Newton and Einstein
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