TITLE:
On the Controversy over the Logical Correctness of Einstein’s First Paper on Mass-Energy Equivalence
AUTHORS:
Patrick Moylan, Lixian Yan, Michael Gironda
KEYWORDS:
History of Science, Origins of Special Relativity
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Historical Studies,
Vol.10 No.1,
March
8,
2021
ABSTRACT: It is well-known that
Einstein’s first attempt to explain E = mc2 which was published in Annalen der Physik in 1905,
has been criticized as problematic. In particular, it has been shown by Ives
and reiterated by Jammer that it suffers from the error of circular reasoning.
Attempts have been made in the scientific literature to discount the circular
reasoning objection of Ives, Jammer, Arzeliès and others. Fritz Rohrlich in
1990 gave a remarkably simple and concise derivation of E = mc2 along lines similar to Einstein’s but based on both momentum and energy conservation, in contrast to Einstein’s which uses only
energy considerations. Rohrlich’s approach using momentum conservation is an
alternative to Einstein’s, which is free from objection in logical error, and
we make it quite clear on the importance of the implicit assumption of momentum
conservation in any attempt to refute the circular reasoning error in
Einstein’s paper. It is our contention that this point is overlooked or
altogether avoided by those who have attempted to uproot the circular reasoning
criticism of Einstein’s paper.