How to express the mass of a proton and an elektron in MeV/c²? Thank you!

I know how to express something in MeV/u and I know how much c² is... But i can't make up my mind how to do this?

1 Answer
Mark C.
May 31, 2018

This is a bit sneaky - it’s physics shorthand, that’s all.

Explanation:

As you know mass and energy are inter-convertible (E=mc^2) and an energy can also be expressed as a charge multiplied by a p.d. (voltage) as E = Q.V

This means that physicists often express the masses or energies of subatomic particles in eV, but of course if we rearrange the first equation for mass we get m = E/c^2 so formally all energies quoted in eV (or MeV, GeV etc.) should actually be quoted as (eV)/c^2 but laziness prevents it and it is just quoted as eV.

Sorry.

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