(I'm 14 and still learning physics so I obviously don't know as much

[Cbray]

(I'm 14 and still learning physics so I obviously don't know as much as you smart guys yet :P)
E=MC^2, is that saying that If you take energy (I'm guessing the electrons) out of a particle or (I forgot the name but it's a group of particles) your also losing matter, if so does that mean electrons have mass? how much?

Sorry I'm a bit confused, this probably sounds dumb :L

Edit: And what does he mean by C^2 (I know its the speed of light squared, but what does it actually mean within the equation)?

I'm also wondering, what is energy itself. There is different kinds, like kinetic and so forth but what actually is energy?

 

[Hyperspace2]

(I'm 14 and still learning physics so I obviously don't know as much as you smart guys yet :P)
E=MC^2, is that saying that If you take energy (I'm guessing the electrons) out of a particle or (I forgot the name but it's a group of particles) your also losing matter, if so does that mean electrons have mass? how much?

Sorry I'm a bit confused, this probably sounds dumb :L

Edit: And what does he mean by C^2 (I know its the speed of light squared, but what does it actually mean within the equation)?

I'm also wondering, what is energy itself. There is different kinds, like kinetic and so forth but what actually is energy?

It means, if we can at max extract E energy from mass m leaving nothing of mass, then ratio of E to m is the square of the speed of light.

You may be wondering why c is there.

Well, this equation is the product that emerged by keeping principle in mind that " No object can observe and exceed the speed of the light"

 

[atomthick]

I'm not aware of an actual meaning of c² in the energy formula. The initial expression was m = m₀ + m₀v²/2c² + m₀3v⁴/8c⁴ + m₀5v⁶/16c⁶ + etc...

He then multiplied both sides with c² resulting in

mc² = m₀c² + m₀v²/2 + etc...

Because m₀v²/2 was the expresion of kinetic energy he deduced that mc² must also be the expression of an energy and because it's the sum of all those energies (some known like kinetic energy, others unknown) it must represent the total energy of the system.

It turnes out he guessed correctly!