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The formula defines the energy E of a particle in its rest frame as the product of mass (m) with the speed of light squared (c 2). Because the speed of light is a large number in everyday units (approximately 300 000 km/s or 186 000 mi/s), the formula implies that a small amount of mass corresponds to an enormous amount of energy.
In physics, natural unit systems are measurement systems for which selected physical constants have been set to 1 through nondimensionalization of physical units.For example, the speed of light c may be set to 1, and it may then be omitted, equating mass and energy directly E = m rather than using c as a conversion factor in the typical mass–energy equivalence equation E = mc 2.
The speed calculated for electromagnetic waves, which could be predicted from experiments on charges and currents, [note 4] matches the speed of light; indeed, light is one form of electromagnetic radiation (as are X-rays, radio waves, and others).
This equation holds for a body or system, such as one or more particles, with total energy E, invariant mass m 0, and momentum of magnitude p; the constant c is the speed of light. It assumes the special relativity case of flat spacetime [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] and that the particles are free.
In a medium, light usually does not propagate at a speed equal to c; further, different types of light wave will travel at different speeds. The speed at which the individual crests and troughs of a plane wave (a wave filling the whole space, with only one frequency ) propagate is called the phase velocity v p .
The standard Compton wavelength λ of a particle of mass is given by =, where h is the Planck constant and c is the speed of light. The corresponding frequency f is given by f = m c 2 h , {\displaystyle f={\frac {mc^{2}}{h}},} and the angular frequency ω is given by ω = m c 2 ℏ . {\displaystyle \omega ={\frac {mc^{2}}{\hbar }}.}
It is common in particle physics, where units of mass and energy are often interchanged, to express mass in units of eV/c 2, where c is the speed of light in vacuum (from E = mc 2). It is common to informally express mass in terms of eV as a unit of mass , effectively using a system of natural units with c set to 1. [ 3 ]
These equations say respectively: a photon has zero rest mass; the photon energy is hν = hc|k| (k is the wave vector, c is speed of light); its electromagnetic momentum is ħk [ħ = h/(2π)]; the polarization μ = ±1 is the eigenvalue of the z-component of the photon spin.