Attempts to prove E=mc²

Attempts to prove E=mc² are futile because there is no mass-energy equivalence. But that has not stopped people, sometimes liberals who avoid the Bible, from insisting that have cleverly developed a "proof" of E=mc², and thereby established a mass-energy equivalence which, in fact, does not exist.

Many of these proofs are either circular in logic, or assume unproven (and often implausible) premises. A common defect to these "proofs" is an unjustified assumption that the energy and momentum of a physical system have a dependence on velocity akin to a moving participle.

Many of these proofs use contrived thought experiments to try to bootstrap the kinetic energy of a moving particle into an assertion about the energy of a resting mass. Aside from changes in potential energy, there is no direct connection between the kinetic energy of a moving mass and its rest energy.