This deals with the effort to explore the atom and then split it, to get unbelievable amounts of energy.

Subsequently, Bodanis deals with the reactions to Einstein's equations, its consequential tie-up with radioactivity (with a rather interesting vignette of Einstein's meeting with Madame Curie), before shifting focus away from the scientist altogether - for some time - towards more experimental science. This is one of the book's high points, with not only the appearance of famous scientists like Michael Faraday, Issac Newton, Antoine Lavoisier, James Clark Maxwell, but also those whose contributions remain unpublicised - like French philosopher Voltaire's mistress, Emilie Du Chatelet, who was one of the foremost intellects of her time and contested Newtonian science to ensure that energy of any object would be the product of its mass and velocity squared, not just mass and velocity.Īlong with their profound discoveries, there is also much other key - and interesting - information beyond scientific matters, and also the human emotions, perceptions and relations that can advance or retard the pursuit of knowledge, as some scientists would learn. Bodanis starts with a brief account of Einstein reaching his conclusion and announcing his discovery, before going on to deal with the evolution of the equation's five components, detailing the history of energy, the 'equal to' sign, mass, celeritas, or the speed of the light, and that too squared (or multiplied by itself).

E mc2 david bodanis