Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

From F = ma to E = mc2

A Conceptual Journey

  • General Article
  • Published:
Resonance Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The title of this article is indicative of the objective of this write-up. It is about the wonderful intellectual journey of mankind that resulted in a paradigm shift in man’s concept of the natural world in general and the science of motion in particular. The dominance of Newtonian mechanics, based upon the principle of Galilean relativity, gradually gave way to a new science of motion covering all branches of physics. It did not happen suddenly and the final theory, known as the special theory of relativity, took several decades to take its final form. It is a well-known story, but often not all parts of this conceptual journey are known to the student community in general. This article is an attempt to fill these gaps.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Suggested Reading

  1. Amitabha Ghosh, Conceptual Evolution of Newtonian and Relativistic Mechanics, Springer, 2017.

  2. Amitabha Ghosh, The little known story of F = ma and beyond, Resonance, Vol.12, No.12, pp.1153–1165, 2009.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Estelle Asmodelle, Origins Pt 1: The special theory of relativity, Science and Technology Journal — UK, 18th May, 2011.

  4. Tony Rothman, Was Einstein the first to invent E = mc2?, Scientific American, August 24, 2015.

  5. K S Shukla and K V Sarma (eds), Aryabhatiya available at https://archive.org/details/Aryabhatiyal976/Aryabhatiya%20vl%201976/.

Download references

Acknowledgement

The author is sincerely thankful to Professor Asok Kumar Mallik for going through the article and suggesting important modifications. He also encouraged the author to prepare this article for publication. Thanks are also due to The Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi, and the National Academy of Sciences, India, Allahabad.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi, Kalpataru Apartments 50/A, College Road, 711 103, India

    Amitabha Ghosh

Authors
  1. Amitabha Ghosh
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Amitabha Ghosh.

Additional information

Amitabha Ghosh was a Professor at IIT Kanpur till his retirement in 2006. In between, he spent five years (1997 to 2002) at IIT Kharagpur as the Director. Currently, he is working as a Senior Scientist of the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi, and is associated with the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Sibpur, as Honorary Distinguished Professor.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Ghosh, A. From F = ma to E = mc2. Reson 27, 369–392 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-022-1327-0

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-022-1327-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation