Is it true that research is being done to capture energy from the Zero Point Field ?

Question

What is Zero Point Field ? Is it useful at all ?

Answer 1

ZPF thinking does have its basis in reality, unlike most of the ideas out there that are simply the worst kind of science or even just psuedo-science. You can learn a bit about it by reading about the very real Casimir Effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect



Various congressional committees have been trying to encourage DARPA to fund research into this. I can imagine nano devices that ought to work. The Casimir effect has been a real problem in some nano-machines where bits that are supposed to move freely get too close together and stick. (Imagine some stiction thingy that has an index of refraction that varies with electric field. Turn on the field, stiction kicks in, turn it off, the thing springs back to place. You could do work with something like that, maybe more work than you need to apply the eletric field. . . .).

Nevertheless, I think that there is no way to get energy out of it, at least using microscopic scale equipment, due to one very simple empirical observation: there is no cellular process that extracts energy this way. If this was a viable source of energy, you can be sure that life would have found it, and whatever life form did, would quickly overwhelm everything else on the planet.

Maybe there is some larger scale trick (though it is hard to imagine something that would not work on a small scale), or something that requires a hard vacuum, but I can't imagine why.

It would be awfully nice to get energy for free, though I suppose you might also be able to make some nasty weaponry this way, like a flywheel that just keeps spinning faster and faster until it disintigrates into shrapnel with large amounts of kinetic energy. No doubt if you actually thought about it, there are lots of nasty things you could do.

Answer 2

Zero Point Energy is the potential energy stored inside subatomic particles. On the subatomic levels, particles can be slowed down until they are vibrating on their lowest frequency. Because they have some wave properties at this level, their oscillations give them definition, and the lowest frequency is called the 'fundamental state'.

The idea of capturing this energy is based on somehow 'stopping' particles, and collecting the energy that was in their fundamental shape.

No one has the slightest clue how to do it, or even if it is possible. Anyone that says otherwise is pulling one over on you. Thus, it is the realm of science fiction for now, but someday, when scientists harness inertia, gravity, and all the rest, they might just capture Zero Point Energy.

Don't get your hopes up.

Answer 3

In physics, the zero-point energy is the lowest possible energy that a quantum mechanical physical system may possess; it is the energy of the ground state of the system. All quantum mechanical systems have a zero point energy.

Because zero point energy is the lowest possible energy a system can have, this energy cannot be removed from the system.

Despite the definition, the concept of zero-point energy, and the hint of a possibility of extracting "free energy" from the vacuum, has attracted the attention of amateur inventors. Numerous perpetual motion and other pseudoscientific devices, often called free energy devices, exploiting the idea, have been proposed. As a result of this activity, and its intriguing theoretical explanation, it has taken on a life of its own in popular culture, appearing in science fiction books, games and movies.

Answer 4

You will get other answers that may make more sense to you now. But, file this away and let it grow quietly in the back of your mind as you continue to muse about physics. The so-called quantum foam of the universe, where the zero point field breaks up, isn't so much a miasmic foam as it is exquisite, double helix patterns as visible on a sunflower's seed face. Doesn't make any sense now. I know. But, capturing that energy requires a perspective related to that pattern. Yes. Research is intensive right now.

Answer 5

yah

its has been done form very long time

in house reserch

and alsoo reverse negeneering

check bouth links for clrity