During Einstein’s life, he was involved in the controversial “Manhattan Project”. Many people believe that it was wrong to utilize his genius in such a violent manner. Others believe the project was a huge scientific success. My opinion on this is that his knowledge should have been applied to a better, and more peaceful way. If Einstein had not worked on the atom bomb, the world could probably have been much less violent and scary. Nearly every country in the world has stockpiles of bombs just waiting to be fired off. This effect of the project could have been prevented had Einstein not contributed to it.
You might be asking what any of this has to do with mathematics. Einstein had developed many different theories and equations in his lifetime, some of which he used in the idea of the atom bomb. Mainly, it was his equation E=mc². This formula tells us the amount of energy a certain mass would be equivalent to, if it were all suddenly turned into energy. It says that to find the energy, you multiply the mass by the square of the speed of light (300,000,000 meters per second). Using this formula, Einstein realized that the great amount of energy released could be used as a powerful explosive.
For example, consider a simple hydrogen atom, basically composed of a single proton. This subatomic particle has a mass of
0.000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 001 672 kg
This is a tiny mass indeed. But in everyday quantities of matter there are a lot of atoms! For instance, in one kilogram of pure water, the mass of hydrogen atoms amounts to just slightly more than 30 grams, or 0.030 kg. The equation would look like this:
E=mc²
= 0.030 x 300,000,000 x 300,000,000 = 2,700,000,000,000,000 Joules
A Joule is not a large unit of energy, but the amount of energy in 30 grams of hydrogen atoms is equivalent to burning 270,000 gallons of gasoline. Realizing this extreme power released from hydrogen atoms led Einstein to come up with the idea of the atom bomb.
His own beliefs were against the use of nuclear weapons, however he took part in the project to prevent Hitler in Germany finding the technology before America did. He knew of the devastating power of the bomb, but decided to work on it anyway. Although I am against this decision, it did help the allied powers in World War II. We were fully protected from the advancements of Germany and therefore could be ready for any imminent attack.