Mass-energy Equivalence

Mass-energy equivalence deals with the release of large amounts of energy from nuclear reactions. An example of a nuclear reactor would be U-238. In the name of relativity, energy and mass is significantly the same thing, hence, making the mass of a U-238 nucleus equivalent to the sum of masses of the 238 nucleons that makes the nucleus up. With mass-energy equivalence, work is no longer equal to the product of force and distance. An example of mass-energy equivalence would be going into the U-238 nucleus and removing each nucleon one by one, using a greater force than the attractive nuclear force, and keeping the removed 238 nucleons separate from each other. An excessive amount of work went into removing every single nucleon which results in having a greater mass with the separated nucleons than the mass of the former nucleus. The extra mass is known as mass-energy. When the extra mass is multiplied by the square root of the speed of light ( E= mc²), it equals the energy input.

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