...if a body gives off the energy L in the form of radiation, its mass diminishes by L/(V squared)...

"...[I]f a body gives off the energy L in the form of radiation, its mass diminishes by L/V²..."

That sentence was published on this day 109 years ago, on September 27, 1905 in a German scientific paper called, “Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy-Content?”

The author was a guy named Albert Einstein.

You know the equation in its now more-familiar form: E=mc².

That, and three other papers he published at the same time, changed the world.

Story: http://earthsky.org/human-world/this-date-in-science-emc2