Friday, October 23, 2009

Zero Point Energy: The Vacuum Myth



"It is evident, then, that it is easy to refute the arguments by which they prove the existence of the void." -- Aristotle, Physics, Book IV

"...there is no void...." -- Aristotle, Physics, Book IV

"There is no vacuum." -- Gottfried W. Leibniz, polymath, 1689

"...space without matter is something imaginary...." -- Gottfried W. Leibniz, polymath, 1689

Helium is a liquid at temperatures a few mK above absolute zero. There is some mysterious energy source that keeps it liquified.

Browne, M.W., Physicists Confirm Power of Nothing, Measuring Force of Universal Flux, The New York Times, Jan 1997

FOR a half century, physicists have known that there is no such thing as absolute nothingness, and that the vacuum of empty space, devoid of even a single atom of matter, seethes with subtle activity. Now, with the help of a pair of metal plates and a fine wire, a scientist has directly measured the force exerted by fleeting fluctuations in the vacuum that pace the universal pulse of existence.

The sensitive experiment performed at the University of Washington in Seattle by Dr. Steve K. Lamoreaux, an atomic physicist who is now at Los Alamos National Laboratory, was described in a recent issue of the journal Physical Review Letters. Dr. Lamoreaux's results almost perfectly matched theoretical predictions based on quantum electrodynamics, a theory that touches on many of the riddles of existence and on the origin and fate of the universe.

The theory has been wonderfully accurate in predicting the results of subatomic particle experiments, and it has also been the basis of speculations verging on science fiction. One of the wilder ones is the possibility that the universal vacuum -- the ubiquitous empty space of the universe -- might actually be a false vacuum.

...

Dr. Lamoreaux's experiment was the first direct and conclusive demonstration of something much less speculative: the Casimir Effect, which has been posited as a force produced solely by activity in the ''empty'' vacuum. His results came as no surprise to anyone familiar with quantum electrodynamics, but they served as material confirmation of a bizarre theoretical prediction.

Quantum electrodynamics holds that the all-pervading vacuum continuously spawns particles and waves that spontaneously pop into and out of existence on an almost unimaginably short time scale.

...

''The energy of the vacuum remains one of the deep mysteries of science,'' Dr. Turner said. ''We know from quantum mechanics that it is not empty. We have much to learn.''

9 comments:

Quantum_Flux said...

I would like to see a burning bush that doesn't consume itself or anything else as a fuel source as much as the next guy. Perhaps the vast universe is just that entity.

Quantum_Flux said...

You think the dielectric permittivity and magnetic permeability of free space are constant or perhaps they decrease based on entropy?

Quantum_Flux said...

c = 1/sqrt(mu naught * epsilon naught)

where c=speed of light in vacuum

mu naught = magnetic permeability of free space

epsilon naught = dielectric permittivity of a vacuum

A lesson in The Theory of Relativity:

If those values increase with the compression of spacetime or the formation of matter in space (E=mc^2), then the speed of light decreases, the index of light refraction increases, etc, a theoretical maximum is spacetime can curve completely in on itself into a black hole thus increasing the index of refraction to infinite.

If those values decrease with the stretching of spacetime, however a perfect vacuum and absolute zero temperatures being the state of infinite stretching of spacetime on the other hand, then the speed of light increases to infinite, somewhat similar to inflation.

BIZZARE, huh?

Quantum_Flux said...

Negative-mu materials, reversed doppler effect = time travel...hmmmm. Perhaps that is the key to antigravity

Quantum_Flux said...

....no, ^^^ that is mathematically incorrect, however. A negative mu material should technically create an imaginary velocity....that would be, for instance, energy and momentum being destroyed, existing merely in phase space as it were. Perhaps that is what Zero Point energy is.

Quantum_Flux said...

....or another interpretation of that might just be the absorption of a photon, perhaps a vacuum can absorb and emitt photons. Okay, if that's the case, then perhaps that is where mass comes from, in the form of positron-electron creation, or in the form of any other sub-atomic particles.

Quantum_Flux said...

Another Submerged Ancient City

Dov Henis said...

"Void, Empty Space" Cannot Be Within The Expanding Universe's Boundary

A. "Light created from the void.
An international team of physicists confirms a long-held theory about the quantum energy that fills empty space."
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/330721/title/Light_created_from_the_void


B. "Void, Empty Space" cannot be within the boundary of the expanding universe. This ensues from the Big Bang, that ensues from the energy-mass dualism, that cycles the universe between allmass and allenergy poles, that renders the whole universe under the omnipresent omnipotent gravity monotheism.


Dov Henis
(Comments From 22nd Century)
http://www.scientistsolutions.com/t18894-update+comprehension+of+universe_life+evolution%2c+of+rna_dna+mismatch_relati.html

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