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Quantum mechanics tells us that even a total vacuum would not be
truly empty because it has a minimum energy level called zero point
energy. Particles continuously pop in and out of existence from this
zero point energy. They are called virtual particles and it is one
of the strange aspects of
quantum mechanics. Tapping this vacuum zero point energy has
been a dream for decades because it would be a limitless supply of
clean free energy. However so far not confirmed way of taping it as
energy source as been demonstrated. Though this has been
demonstrated by the
Casimir effect no way had been shown to actually turn this into
usable energy.
Chris Wilson at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg,
Sweden recently conducted an experiment that succeeds in pulling
photons out of this vacuum energy. It uses a superconductor and a
quantum oscillator which moved electrons at a quarter the speed of
light. The result was that virtual photons absorbed a portion of the
electron’s kinetic energy radiating pairs of real photons. This
process is called
the dynamical Casimir effect and it had never been observed
before.
Unfortunately the effect does not produce more energy than is
requiered to cause it. However this along with the regular
Casimir effect shows that this vacuum zero point energy is real
and that matter can interact with it. |
