Old news, but your news report also got it wrong.
Pretto came to his "formula" via the mistaken belief that mv2 calculated the energy of an object in motion (the correct formula is 1/2 mv2). So while he got the right answer, he got to it via both an incorrect assumption combined with a serious and obvious mathematical error.
But the story is even more wrong - Einstein did not formulate E=mc2. Einstein postulated mass diminution = L/c2 (where L is the amount of energy released, the formula thus telling you how much mass is lost). The first derivation of e=mc2 was by Max Plank, based on Einstein work.
But e=mc2 is actually wrong, in terms of the real world, as it ignores momentum. The correct formula is E2 = m2c4 + p2c2 (where p is momentum). The only time e=mc2 is correct is when the observer is stationary relative to the mass in question.
Bryan
