Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
> As I said, I had written up a reply to some things you said earlier.
> So, with extensive revisions, here it is.
>
> First, as an aside, I don't think Einstein originated the idea of the
> interchangeability of mass and energy. I have been told (by someone
> sort of reliable, IIRC) that there had been at least one prior
> published derivation, and I have the general impression that more than
> one person had worked on it; an open question at the time was what the
> coefficient should be. IIRC previous derivations had led to
> coefficients around (1/2)c^2, and certainly less than 1, unlike
> Einstein's result, which put it at exactly 1(c^2). Don't ask me for
> the details of the earlier work, though; I don't have them.
In Max Born's book _Einstein's Theory of Relativity_ there is a
derivation of E = mc^2 without any special relativity concepts.
see p. 283-286 of the 1962 edition.
Harry
