What does the E represent in Einstein's equation E equals mc2?

Answer 1

Energy.

The equation says that the quantity of Energy (E) equivalent to some quantity of mass

is equal to m times c2 (c squared).

'm' is the quantity of mass, and 'c' is the speed of light.

The actual numbers are incredible. The equation says that a mass that weighs about 2.2 pounds is equivalent to 25 billion kilowatt-hours of energy ... about 500 days' worth of the total generating capacity of the Zion nuclear power plant north of Chicago. This energy would be released completely only by reducing the mass to its constituent particles and then annihilating them all. Nuclear reactors release only a tiny fraction of the available energy in their nuclear fuel.

C is equal to about 300,000 kilometers/second. Squared it is 9 x 1010 (90 billion).

Answer 2

The significance is that it can help you understand all sorts of physical situations. Here is one: in a particle accelerator, two particles are smashed together, and you may get LOTS of particles, much more than the original particles, which - at first glance - appear out of nowhere. However, in reality, the mass of the new particles comes from the kinetic energy, due to the equivalence of mass and energy.

Answer 3

It indicates that matter an energy are just two names for the same thing.

Answer 4

The answer is energy