R.L. Said
Trust me on these subjects you can teach me nothing!
I BELIEVE what you are saying here. I'm just wondering why you are unable to absorb new information and why you are unwilling to think for yourself.

Johannes has mastered the ability of symbolic thought! This puts him on the same footing as
neanderthals... Unfortunately he does not understand what is involved in a derivation.
Albert Einstein was among the many people that have used the symbols that I am interpreting. Perhaps the Neanderthals understood the universe better than you.
Derivation--- to me the word means; to understand how the end product was derived.

der·i·va·tion (dèr´e-vâ¹shen) noun
Abbr. der., deriv.
1. The act or process of deriving.
2. The state or fact of being derived; originating: a custom of recent derivation.
3. Something derived; a derivative.
4. The form or source from which something is derived; an origin.
5. The historical origin and development of a word; an etymology.
6. Linguistics. a. The process by which words are formed from existing words or bases by adding affixes, as singer from sing or undo from do, by changing the shape of the word or base, as song from sing, or by adding an affix and changing the pronunciation of the word or base, as electricity from electric. b. A linguistic description of the process of word formation.
7. Logic & Mathematics. A logical or mathematical process indicating through a sequence of statements that a result such as a theorem or a formula necessarily follows from the initial assumptions.
— der´i·va¹tion·al adjective1

How can you say that your derivation with numbers is superior to my derivation with symbols?
As far as I am concerned, numbers are nothing more than symbols.

First off, the formula is actually only valid for an object at rest-it is the special case of a slightly more complicated formula, secondly it comes from two postulates:
1) The speed of light is a constant.
2) The laws of physics are the same in all reference frames.

I could, but I choose not to split hairs over these postulates, they are close enough to the truth for most purposes. (in my humble opinion)

You seem to feel Einstein just woke up one day and wrote it down, but it is the end result of rigorous mathematical reasoning.

I agree that the end result was due to rigorous reasoning, but I believe that the reasoning was not TOTALLY mathematical.

My scientific comprehension goes far beyond:"OH! OH! Wouldn't it be so cool if the universe was this way? I think I will firmly believe that it IS this way- despite the fact many grade schoolers can prove me wrong!"
My vocabulary does contain the words 'model' or 'hypothesis' and you fail to meet the definition of either.

You are assuring me that YOU and any grade school student can explain the meaning of the formula that I presented in a previous post. In case you did not comprehend the symbols, you can look at them again. E=(u/k)C. Now I can believe that any grade "schoolers" will understand it, but YOU???? hard to believe.

J--The reason why Albert squared the universal speed limit in his formula, was a mystery to me for a long time. My first reaction was to question the reason for having a 'speed' that was faster than the supposed limit. After 'working' on the problem for many days, I finally understood it.
Again, Einstein had no choice- it is the result of mathematics and logic

Yes but there are at least two paths to the same results.

J--Since my explanation would deviate from the 'normal' and mathematical explanation that has been given by others, I will refrain from explaining it here. (The explanation might offend those that know everything.)

R.L.--You mean others that actually gon through the mathematical derivation? Others that have taken graduate level courses on the subject? Others that actually KNOW what they are talking about?

Not the ones that really KNOW and understand what they are talking about, only the ones that THINK they know what they are talking about and talk about everything without understanding what they are talking about. (I hope you understand what I am talking about:-)

J--I can explain why the speed of light must be squared in Einstein's formula, perhaps you can give us your understanding of the reason.
R.L.--No, you can't... I have gone through the derivation and starting with those two postulates and the Lorentz transformations it comes out very naturally...

Yes I can.... Depends on what you mean by "it". :-) But seriously; the formula does indicate some truths about the behavior of nature. Some of those 'truths' have been verified experimentally.

But I have only had more courses than I can count that required knowledge of relativity, and only gave an hour long talk on how anti-Hydrogen could be used to test the standard model and general relativity- followed by a grilling by tenured professors- How can I possibly challenge your notions on the subject, after all you ARE apparently certain you are right!

Good for you...... Until proof in the form of scientific experiments determines what the reality is, I will believe to be right.

But you know better, just like your inane "the atmosphere is going away!" theory... you can be scientifically proven to wrong by MANY orders of magnitude many times and many ways, (remember I wasted time doing just that), yet even though you are either too lazy or too ignorant to do the math yourself you insist that you are right and the laws of reality just don't matter!

To summarize that argument: Is it fair to say that your point is; that nuclear fission in the Earth's atmosphere can not impart kinetic energy to the atmospheric molecules? (No math needed, just a yes or no answer.)

Yes, I answered this before and used math and facts to prove definatively that you are off by something like 10^12 orders of magnitude... You refuse to do any math showing you arent...

Your answer is "yes" ,yet you seem to say that mathematics shows that there is a exceedingly tiny possibility that the radioactivity might increase the kinetic energy of some air molecules.
What I am trying to point out to you (without math) are the facts that:
1) Earth IS loosing some molecules to space.
2) Radioactivity CAN impart kinetic energy to air molecules.
3) IF the atmospheric molecules obtain more kinetic energy, then more of the molecules WILL escape into space.
What you seem to be saying is that the numbers that you used in your calculation indicate that the quantity of kinetic energy imparted to the atmosphere by the present amount of radioactivity in the atmosphere is so small that its effects can be ignored for an indefinite period of time..
I can not prove or disprove your mathematical supposition at this time. I do not have enough appropriate information to do the proper calculations. When I get enough time to dig out the proper information and do the calculations, then I will present my findings and we can (again) compare notes on this subject.

In the meantime
Keep smiling
Johannes

PS
It is a mathematical fact that a derivative of a constant equals zero. Perhaps Robert or Nick can explain how that applies to the formula of E=MC^2.
You failed to respond to this comment, I wonder why.