Is this the only known photo of Einstein's Mass-Energy Equivalence formula?

[progressoid]

It's really grainy, and you can't make out the famous E=MC2 equation, but this is the only known photograph of the master hammering away at the chalkboard on his special relativity formula.

David Topper and Dwight Vincent of the University of Winnipeg discovered the photograph in a halftone newspaper file photo clipping. It features Einstein using two blackboards to express the derivation of the equivalence of mass and energy during a public lecture in Pittsburgh in 1934.

Shockingly, no one had the sense to take a shot of the E=MC2 equation — not then and not ever. Topper and Vincent offer an explanation in their analysis:

In the end there were several missed opportunities and failed comprehensions that day— surely by the photographers, some from the audience, and perhaps even by Einstein himself. Because he was posed next to the wrong blackboard, no photographer snapped the picture posterity wanted; that is, capturing the famous scientist with his equally famous energy equation. Yet we know that even if he had been placed next to the correct blackboard, few viewers then, as now would immediately grasp the significance of [E=MC2]. How many in the general public know the convention of setting c=1? Moreover, this issue is a subset of a larger one of Einstein’s own making; namely, his decision to overlook the nonmathematicians in the crowd, and instead to pitch his talk consistently at a high mathematical and abstract level. Probably no one expected Einstein to dumb-down his talk; after all, he was delivering the Gibbs Lecture at the request of the AMS.

Though it's super unclear, Topper and Vincent managed to transcribe Einstein's chalkboard scribblings...http://io9.com/the-only-known-photo-of-einsteins-mass-energy-equivale-488731904

In their article "Einstein's 1934 Two-Blackboard Derivation of Energy-Mass Equivalence" (found in the American Journal of Physics, 75 (11), November 2007, pp 978-983) David Topper and Dwight Vincent of the University of Winnipeg sort it out and reproduce a not-sharp (but essential!) halftone newspaper file photo clipping showing Einstein doing just this, using two blackboards for the derivation of the equivalence of mass and energy during a public lecture in Pittsburgh in 1934.

In their short excellent article they do a fine job of discussing the history of these sorts of images as well as provide a nice description of what's on the blackboard. Full article here: http://www.relativitycalculator.com/pdfs/einstein_1934_two-blackboard_derivation_of_energy-mass_equivalence.pdf

[GeorgeGist]

1. Is this the only known photo of Einstein's Mass-Energy Equivalence formula?

The answer is no.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. Please show us the other one.

[greiner3]

5. I hope this answers your query.

"Photographers were most fond of snapping pictures of Albert Einstein standing before a blackboard containing equations, thus reinforcing the stereotype of the ethereal scientist amid his remote and abstract mathematical world. There are abundant pictures fitting this format, one of which we analyzed earlier.^1

Most are obviously posed shots taken either before or after a lecture see Fig.1; only a few are candid, taken during the lecture
see Fig. 2"

The OP's title "Is this the only known photo of Einstein's Mass-Energy Equivalence formula?" is somewhat misleading as there are 2 links given in the post.

The first link;

http://io9.com/the-only-known-photo-of-einsteins-mass-energy-equivale-488731904

Was the apparently the OP's first contact with the information.

This article;

http://www.relativitycalculator.com/pdfs/einstein_1934_two-blackboard_derivation_of_energy-mass_equivalence.pdf

Was wrong, as it pertains to the title as to the actual paper.

[Warren DeMontague]

2. It's pretty easy to remember.

I can see why he may not have written it down a lot.

It's the ideas that are behind it which are so groundbreaking, anyway- not the equation itself.

[nikto]

4. A Revelation...

If E=MC2

Then

E-3=MC2-3