If there is an experiment that best supports $E=mc^2$, is it the Michelson-Morley experiment?
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4$\begingroup$ note that the help-center page on merging multiple accounts might be interesting to you in the context of seeming duplicated accounts: physics.stackexchange.com/users/58232/bill-solomon and physics.stackexchange.com/users/58238/william-solomon $\endgroup$– dmckee --- ex-moderator kittenCommented Nov 12, 2014 at 22:31
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2 Answers
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Particle--antiparticle annihilation events are direct evidence of the mass-energy correspondence.
Michelson and Morley interferometric results support the absoluteness of the speed of light (or some more esoteric possible results), and building from that and the relativity principle you can arrive at the mass-energy correspondence rather indirectly.
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Nuclear plants (and theoretically fusion plants) work with $e=mc^2$.
For example:
The mass of 2 Protons and 2 Neutrons is bigger than the mass of Helium, which consists of 2 Protons and 2 Neutrons. The difference is emitted as energy when Helium is made by the fusion of 2 Protons and 2 Neutrons (the actual reaction in the sun are a bit more complicated, but it's the same principle), as seen in the sun and H-bombs.
The michaelson-morley experiment disproved the theory of the ether, giving experimental arguments for the theory of relativity.
