Excellent book! This really helped pull things together for me, such as what we read about in Feynman's "Six Easy Pieces" and what "heavy water" is. The book is set up as a biography, so it goes through the history behind the pieces of the equation--even the equals sign!--and then through the life of the equation itself. Along the way, Bodanis includes stories about the people involved (Lavoisier, Faraday, Einstein, and many others) that really add color and interest.

The author explains the scientific concepts clearly, even for my less-scientific mind. I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone who reads. You'll feel much more informed when you finish it!

I was going into this as an opportunity to improve my understanding of context around scientific discovery, and ended up reading a book that made me realize that I could enjoy learning history.

Starting with each of the letters and symbols in the famous equation, the author tracks down the origin of each. Having explained those, he then charts the path of the individuals and breakthroughs that led to the the first atomic bombs. While that latter part is a little hard to read, knowing the tragedy and death that will follow the development of the bomb, overall this is an enjoyable and informative read. It provided the clearest explanation of the atomic chain reaction that creates the mushroom cloud I've ever read. It's so good, I had to share it with others. "Hey, do you know..." Completely worth your time.

I'd give this a 3.5. I found the beginning to be a little slow, but once the book moved more into people's lives and the rush for the A-bomb things really picked up. One thing to note is the enthusiasm of the author. I never expected to see so many exclamation points in a book about science, but maybe that's just because I lack imagination. While at times Bodanis seems to lay it on a little thick, there are parts of the book in which I genuinely shared his enthusiasm. Learning about the practical uses of E=mc2 is something many books leave out, but understanding what exactly is going on inside a nuclear warhead really was fascinating. I also loved hearing about the torrid affairs that affected many of the contributing scientists, especially the ladies. I guess if you were free/rich enough to be a British female scientist in the 17th/18th century, you probably had the freedom to do just about whatever the hell you wanted (and boy did they!). Get passed the first 1/4 of the book and the ridiculous number of times this man says E=mc2 followed by an exclamation point, and you'll enjoy this book quite a bit.

The thrills of being in the queue at Houston’s court house:

A couple of weeks ago I was summo
ns for jury duty, so while in line, seeing if I was going to be selected, a gentleman in his early sixties was reading this book titled “E=MC2.” I overheard him sharing that he was enjoying it, so that was enough to get my curiosity up.

I guess this book is an expansion of a book I read a few weeks ago titled “A Brief History of Time” by Steven Hawking. I don’t believe this book was written as well as Hawkins’ book, but it had some amazing items in it that just astonished me.

For example, the atomic boom we dropped on Japan in World War II exploded 2,000 feet above the earth. In addition, militarily we didn’t even need to drop this boom to win the war, so I guess tens of thousands of lives could have been saved. Furthermore, we dropped it directly over a hospital, but that’s really a moot point considering the power and velocity of this weapon.

More importantly, this book helps me with my understanding of the world and universe we live in. It’s fascinating to glimpse or even think about different dimensions of space and time within our universe. Let alone how the big bang theories apply to our current space in time, and how our universe is developing.

I mean how does one capture the depths of this in just a few paragraphs? All I can say is OMG, there is so much to learn. Keep it coming.

One of my favorite books of all time. I've become more and more interested in learning about physics and how the world works, and this book plays into that perfectly.

Bodanis breaks down what E=mC2 really MEANS perfectly. He has a gift for describing this really complex theories so the average man can understand them. Near the middle of the book, he breaks down the exact chemical reactions that take place during the detonation of a nuclear bomb as well as exactly how the Earth came to be as we know it today. It was really quite extraordinary to read.

I would recommend this to anybody with an interest in Science.

Dit is best wel een leuk book, als je geeky/nerdy genoeg bent tenminste.
Op de cover van mijn examplaar staat Einstein, dus zou je snel de fout kunnen maken dat dit over een biografie gaat van de bekenste geleerder aller tijden, maar niets is minder waar.
De subtitel 'Biografie van de bekenste formule' vat het helemaal samen. De formule wordt uit elkaar gehaald en naalde voor draadje besproken en uitgelegd. Zo krijgt elk element zijn geschiedenis en oorsprong. Ja, zelfs het gelijkheidsteken krijgt zijn hoofdstuk. Uiteindelijk is dit allemaal geen verbode luxe, want zonder al deze voorgaande informatie is het heel moeilijk om uiteindelijk E=mc2 te begrijpen.
Eenmaal de formule uitgelegd wordt er een groot aantal pagina's aan de ontwikkeling van de atoombom besteed en uiteindelijk wordt afgesloten met de relevantie van de formule en het heelal.
Er komen dus veel meer wetenschappers bij kijken dan enkel Einstein, het lijkt wel een best-of. Gelukkig is David Bodanis een goede verteller en de wetenschap, geschiedenis en de mens achter de wetenschapper worden zonder problemen door elkaar verweven. Ook zijn kracht om natuurkunde op een simpele manier aan de man te brengen is lovenswaardig. Opgepast, soms moet je wel even doorbijten en een bepaalde paragraaf herlezen om alles te begrijpen.

Way too much focus on World War II and so much unnecessary detail and commentary that could have been cut. And too much focus on too many people's lives (I'd forgotten who most of them were when their names were mentioned again). And generally not very good explanations of the physics.

I did not learn much from this book because it was so boring that I didn't process much of the information. And I am pretty interested in physics so it should not have been so boring. I think this only got such a good rating on here because everyone else just stopped reading the book (I would've if I didn't need to finish it for school).

it does explain the equation well, though the book is much more than that. 4 stars is a bit generous, I am rounding up. It uses the equation as a spring board for expansion of how the equation applies to both the creation of the bomb and how it applies to astronomical energy...

Bodanis describes the history of the science leading up to Einstein's research and the related work that came after it. Emphasis on the word history here. While Bodanis does try to give the reader an intuition of the science (probably in ways that would make a real scientist cringe on occasion), it is not really his focus. The real focus is the story of the equation and the people involved in its history. While Bodanis does take some liberties speculating on the feelings and motivations of some of the participants, the book is full of interesting things that I did not know about the scientists. Also, by focusing on the equation, the reader gets to see a scientific history sliced in a unique and intriguing way. Altogether, a good fluffy science book.

The equation (E=mc2) is always fascinating to many of us. We often talk about this equation without understanding the significance of it. The book really helps us to understand the inner connotation of one of the most imperative equation of mankind. David Bodanis drafted the pre-existent thought, birth, early stage, complete development and post effect of the equation wonderfully. The equation played a pivotal role during Second World War and it’s well documented inside. The vivid imagination and intellect of Einstein produced this era redefined equation. He took merely eight months to develop it without having a laboratory or any special equipment to carry forward his research. Amazing books with full of information on different discoveries of science (along with E=mc2) and life of scientist. Must Read.

Third time reading this book. Easy read with nice overviews of the most important physicists (and their contributions) in modern human history, told via captivating stories.