2023/05/19 by Patrick Moylan, Moylan, Patrick
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #History and Developments in Astronomy #History and Philosophy of Physics (physics.hist-ph) #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Relativity and Gravitational Theory
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2305.11852
openalex publication_date 2023/05/19 · openalex created_date 2023/05/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Both Poincaré in his 1900 Festschrift paper \citePoincare and Einstein in his 1905 Annalen der Physik article \citeEinstein were led to E=mc2 by considering electromagnetic processes taking place in vacuo. Poincaré's treatment is based on a generalization of the law of conservation of momentum to include radiation. Einstein's analysis relies solely on energy conservation and the relativity principle together with certain assumptions, which have served as the source of criticism of the paper beginning with Max Planck in 1907. We show that these objections raised by Planck and others can be traced back to Einstein's failure to make use of momentum considerations. Relevance of our findings to a proper understanding of Ives' criticism of Einstein's paper is pointed out.