Solar Energy |
When Albert Einstein presented his famous Special Theory of Relativity in 1905, even he didn't know all the ramifications of the simple equation, E = MC2. Based on this one equations, scientists have realized that matter is really nothing more than frozen energy. Releasing this energy embodied in all matter became the goal of physicists, whose success was fatefully demonstrated in the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, and in the subsequent development of even more awesome nuclear bombs.
It is important to note that this energy is in all matter, not just the material used to power the Sun, produce bombs, or fuel nuclear power plants. This frozen energy is in rocks, trees, the cells of your body, and even the change in your pocket or purse.
Pull out a few coins and take a look at them. They don't look very energetic, do they? But if you could somehow extract all the energy bound up in a single penny, it would supply vastly more energy than you would ever need for the rest of your life! (But before you get too excited about this, please understand that while the energy is contained in all matter, there is no feasible way of extracting or using it.)
Now plug in the number of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters you have into the form below. Or you can just plug in any amount of mass in grams. If you have a Javascript enabled browser, click on the calculate button to find out how much energy is stored in your coins. You will be amazed!
You can see that if this much energy is stored within a few coins, how much more is released as the Sun changes approximately 5 million tons of matter to energy each second! If your browser isn't JAVASCRIPT capable, you will not see the form above.Hit your BACK button to return.
