Re: Einstein's Mistakes

Mr. Hertz: "Heisenberg (1959, cited from the 1981 issue, pp 95-96)
designates the mass-energy relationship as secure findings, though he
describes the usual interpretation, a transformation of
mass into energy, as a misunderstanding: 'It is occasionally maintained
that the enormous amounts of energy released during the explosion of an
atomic bomb come directly from the conversion of mass into energy and
that one could only predict this gigantic amount of energy on the basis
of the theory of relativity. However, this attitude arises from a
misunderstanding. That great amounts of energy are stored in the atomic
nuclei has been known since the experiments of Becquerel, Curie and
Rutherford on radioactive decay. [...] The energy associated with the
splitting of the uranium nucleus has the same origins as in the case of
the [alpha-]decay of a radium nucleus, i.e. mainly from the
electrostatic repulsion of the two parts into which the atomic nucleus
is split. The energy released by an atomic explosion thus comes directly
from this source and does not derive from a conversion of mass into
energy.'" - "Catalogue of Errors for Both Theories of Relativity"