How did albert einstein discover e=mc2?

Not really. The mass energy equivalence mc^2 was known long before his work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_H... And probably someone else did it even before Fridrich.

It could be dated back to 1881. He is often accused of plagiarism. But he was just smart to summarize thing already done.

So somehow it stick to his name. He was also editor of a scientific journal, and in an age without internet, things could be rediscovered continuously in 30 years :) And yes most of the thing in physics are known by someones else name, for contributions basically.

Of course, virtually any discovery is built upon the prior discoveries of others. But in that usual sense of discovery, Einstein was indeed the first (as far as I know) to discover this equation. The fact that he did not cite any sources is not an indication that the work wasn't based on prior work.

He should have at least credited the work of Maxwell, because he clearly knew of Maxwell's equations, which made the speed of light a fundamental constant in the laws physics. He should have also credited Galileo either directly or indirectly for the principle of relativity (Galilean relativity). And if he was aware of it (I suspect he was), he certainly should have cited the Michelson-Morley experiment for the fact that the speed of light was the same in all reference frames.

Some of the work repeated what Lorentz had already done, so that should have been cited as well, again assuming he was aware of it. I missed Poincaré, who did utilize that same equation in dealing with electromagnetic mass (see Wikipedia), albeit in a slightly different form and with a different interpretation. Hasenöhrl and others didn't derive the same form of the equation, with an extra factor of 4/3 not present in Einstein's derivation.

The reason why Einstein would be credited with the equation is that his assumptions turned out to be valid, making his derivation the correct one. But even still, Poincaré should have been cited for having derived basically the same equation before, even if under different assumptions. I take issue with the idea that Einstein just copied others, though.

His contributions were clearly original, even if some parts of the work were considered previously. He was the one who brought all of it together in a coherent theory and certainly applied many of his own original ideas in doing so. Nevertheless, that doesn't excuse him for not having credited those before him.

Also, derivations of equations pertaining to the laws of physics aren't properly called creations or inventions. They are discoveries, because one *discovers* something about how the universe works. It would only be a creation if Einstein actually caused the universe to behave like that.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.