The Experimental Examination of E = mc2
Einstein, manuscript on the Special Theory of Relativity, 1912, facsimile
This unpublished manuscript is a summary of the Special Theory of Relativity and is the earliest surviving document in which Einstein's famous formula is to be found in the form well-known today. On the page shown, Einstein is concerned with the experimental examination of the equivalence of mass and energy. He establishes that radioactive decays are the only natural events that release enough energy to measure this equivalence.