During the summer of 1905, while fulfilling his duties in the patent office in Bern, Switzerland, Albert Einstein was fiddling with a tantalizing outcome of the special theory of relativity he'd published in June. His new insight, at once simple and startling, led him to wonder whether "the Lord might be laughing and leading me around by the nose."
But by September, confident in the result, Einstein wrote a three-page supplement to the June paper, publishing perhaps the most profound afterthought in the history of science. A hundred years ago this month, the final equation of his short article gave the world E=mc².
In the century since, E=mc² has become the most recognized icon of the modern scientific era. There is nothing you can do, not a move you can make, not a thought you can have, that doesn't tap directly into E=mc². It's an equation that tells of matter, energy and a remarkable bridge between them.
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