To celebrate the centennial of Einstein's E = mc2, NOVA asked 10 top physicists—two Nobel Prize winners among them—how they would describe the equation to curious non-physicists.
Tim Halpin-Healy, Theoretical Physicist, Barnard College, Columbia University: "Moving clocks run slow, moving meter sticks are shortened -- how does that happen?"
Nima Arkani-Hamed, Theoretical Physicist, Harvard University: "Things that seem incredibly different can really be manifestations of the same underlying phenomena."
Brian Greene, Theoretical Physicist, Columbia University: "It certainly is not an equation that reveals all its subtlety in the few symbols that it takes to write down."