E=MC squared at 100

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

One hundred years ago today, September 27th, 1905, a physics paper was dropped into the mail addressed to a German journal called Annalen der Physik.

MICHELE NORRIS, host:

The paper was penned by a 26-year-old Swiss patent clerk with dark, curly hair years before he sprouted that signature nest of white hair. The paper was just three pages long, and it introduced what would arguably become the most famous string of letters and numbers in the world.

BLOCK: E=MC squared.

(Soundbite of vintage broadcast)

Mr. ALBERT EINSTEIN: E=MC square, in which energy is part equal to mass, multiplied by the square of the velocity of light. So a very small amount of mass may be converted into a very large amount of energy and vice versa.

BLOCK: As Albert Einstein says, vice versa; mass may converted into energy and back again.

Mr. JOHN RIGDEN (Washington University, St. Louis): It is vice versa. And Einstein--what he showed was that, in fact, these two things are the same.

BLOCK: That's John Rigden, a physicist at Washington University in St. Louis. He's the author of "Einstein 1905," a book on Einstein's so-called miraculous year.

•	E=MC squared at 100 NPR: All Things Considered, Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2005 Byline: Melissa Block and Michele Norris, hosts