Why does E = mc²?
E = mc² holds because mass is energy that stays put, a standing cost of repair on the region's own clock. A region's energy is how fast its records are being worked through by repair. Mass is the cost of a pattern that keeps re-asserting itself, like the heap of water John Scott Russell chased along a canal, which held its shape while the water under it changed. Write a region's energy and its three components of momentum into a two-by-two table of numbers, and the table's determinant, a quantity every observer agrees on, is the square of the mass. Set the momentum to zero and energy equals mass. Restore the speed of light and E = mc². Because the conversion is squared, a helium nucleus's tiny mass shortfall against its four parts releases 28.3 million electronvolts.
Also in Chapter 35: What Is Anything Made Of?.
This answer comes from OPH, Observer Patch Holography. OPH is a rigorous, consistent and complete description of the unified, self-creating computational Universe we inhabit. Its consistency is machine-checked: the fixed point at its core is constructed explicitly, and a theory with a model contains no contradiction.
To understand OPH and check every step yourself, start with the free book Reverse Engineering Reality. It builds the theory from the ground up, and the OPH Notebook answers your questions while you read.
read the free bookask the notebookor ask sage:read chapter 18: Why Does Anything Have Energy?watch a universe make its own particles