What is the Casmir effect/ zero point energy see detials prior to answer please.?

Question

the space between objects in a vaccum have a property that exerts a attractive force?
In your answer please keep in mind that I am what one would call a lay person as I lack a formal education.

I see interesting.

Answer 1

I've read only a tiny bit on the Casimir effect, so I don't know much of anything other than the name. There is a Wikipedia entry on it --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect

-- but that looks like pretty heavy going. Maybe someone else can steer you to a better introduction.

Answer 2

A vacuum isn't empty. Its stuffed with virtual photons and virtual particles. They're called virtual because they don't have an independent meaningful existence. Quantum physics predicts them but how do we know they exist ?. Consider the virtual photons for a minute. There will be many virtual photons of differing wavelengths. In unconfined space they're all free to exist, but in a very small gap -say between two plates - only photons with a wavelength that "fit" in the gap can exist. So outside the plates there are more photons than in between the plates and this exerts a "pressure". This is the Casimir effect and has been measured. Something that doesn't really exist has been measured as having an effect !.

Answer 3

The energy of vacuum, or "zero point energy", is equal to zero on average, but not at any given time. There are fluctuations that give it either a positive or negative value. You can, mathematically, express these fluctuations in vacuum energy with virtual photons (photons that are not really there, but they might as well be since the effect is the same).

As explained by people above, the so called "Casimir force" comes about from the energy density difference between the inner side and outer sides of two plates that are very close to each other. Since only certain wavelengths of the virtual photons are allowed inside the two plates (a quantum mechanical effect), the pressure from the outside makes the parallel plates attract.

If I still remember correctly from my classes, such pressure is equal to 1 atmosphere for meter-squared plates. However, it's unfeasible to construct such things (plates must be smooth and perfectly parallel), so the Casimir effect is noticeable in nanotechnology lengthscales. For micron-squared plates, it is about 9 orders of magnitude smaller.

Answer 4

If you take in consideration only the pairs electron-positron are in that virtual vacuum,you can "extract" that particles using a DC constant voltage between the plates up to 1,3 MegaVolts, over that DC voltage you get from that vacuum electrons and positrons for separated, for get succesfully that separation you must use a soft DC magnetic field, this was tested in labs, you can see green clouds like boreal clouds when energy concentration is high, extracted electrons are real-permanent with energy about 500 Kev. Nikola Tesla was the first in see that green clouds travel between its powerfull discharges, around that clouds there is density alteration of the time-space and negative energy reduces the enviroment temperature

For extract pairs, particle-antiparticle or atom-antiatom the aproximate general equation is:

2* m * c^2 = q * V

m is the mass of the particle or antiparticle, c the light speed, q the absolute charge of the particle or antiparticle and V the DC potential needed for extract that particle from the vacuum, if m and q are the mass and electron charge you get a value next to the 1,3 Megavolts or 1,3 Mev

More detailed calculations show 1 cm3 of space stores matter can go from 10^80 grams to 10^120 grams according to the atom-antiatom you can extract from the vaccum


Bye

Answer 5

Ok - quantum electrodynamics, the quantum theory of how light and matter interact, predicts that the vacuum is really composed of an equal number of particle and anti-particles. They aren't experienced by normal matter since they combine to form this vacuum state.

Now if you bring two metal plates very close together, you can polarize this sea of particles and anti-particles. Remember anti-particles have an opposite electric charge from tehir matter counterparts. Polarization simply means that the two opposite charges separate a little bit hence a net electric field is created. The electric field due to the polarized vacuum induces surface charges on the plates. The charges are of opposite sign and of the same size so there arises an attractive force between the plates.

Answer 6

ya, good luck with that one partner, if we ever needed a 4th-dimensional tivo it's now..... lol