Thread: Surely E=mc^2 was first written down in 1881!
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Old 06-February-2002, 02:47 PM
Rob Thorpe Rob Thorpe is offline
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On 2002-02-06 03:50, Dunash wrote:

Is this article wrong?
Didn't JJ Thompson write the formula first in 1881?!
http://www.rense.com/general19/ital.htm
Not quite.
JJ Thompson had another constant in E=mc^2, I think it was either 2/3 or 3/2. Lorentz also wrote it down before Einstein again with another constant.
The idea of mass-energy equivalence had been thrown around for years before Einstein for example by Poincare.