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Karoka
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Can someone basicly explain what is zero point energy using simple english.
Karoka said:Thanks. You helped a lot. But one more question... You said two atoms... It can be any material, could it?
alxm said:But consider an analogous quantum-mechanical system, for instance, two atoms connected by a chemical bond (which we can approximate as acting like a spring). Here, they will have a certain amount of kinetic energy, even when they're in the lowest possible state. This is then called the 'zero point vibrational energy' or sometimes just 'zero point energy' (which can be confusing, since ZPE is also used for other energies that are related in principle).
crapworks said:Hmm, do you have something for vacuum?
Did Casimir Effect proved it or Casimir Effect is a different, unrelated phenomenon?
alxm said:The Casimir effect is from vacuum fluctuations (which are predicted by quantum electrodynamics). I would not say that the Casimir effect 'proved' it, but it's one of relatively few readily observable QED effects (another being the Lamb shift), and it's also essentially the same thing as the van der Waals forces (more specifically, London dispersion forces), that everyone learns about in high school. (London forces are a limiting case where the field and special-relativity effects can be ignored, hence London didn't need QED to explain them.)
For whatever reason, the Casimir effect has caught the attention of a lot of crackpots (and at the moment I see two crackpot posts in this thread already), 'speculative physicists', and science fiction writers, although I have no idea why, because I don't see why it's deserving of so much more attention than, for instance, the other related effects I mentioned. Particularly, I don't see where this idea comes from that the Casimir effect (or any other QED effect) could be used to 'extract energy from the vacuum' or some similar. In QED, energy is conserved at every vertex of a Feynman diagram. I see no reason for anyone to believe that the Casimir effect, or any other QED phenomenon allows you to somehow violate the first law of thermodynamics.
Likewise, nobody ever seems to have suggested that London forces would allow you to somehow get 'free energy' either. Probably because they could be explained without (explicitly) invoking the mysterious vacuum.
Pardon the pun, but it's all much ado about nothing, if you ask me.
Zero point energy is the lowest possible energy that a quantum mechanical physical system may possess. It is the energy that remains when all other forms of energy have been removed from a system.
Zero point energy is a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics. According to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, particles are not at rest even at absolute zero temperature. This residual energy is known as zero point energy.
Zero point energy has significant implications in various fields such as cosmology, particle physics, and quantum field theory. It is believed to play a role in the expansion of the universe and the stability of matter.
There is ongoing research and debate about the possibility of harnessing zero point energy for practical use. Some theories suggest that it may be possible to extract usable energy from the vacuum, but this has not been proven and remains a topic of scientific investigation.
No, zero point energy and free energy are not the same. Free energy refers to the energy that can be extracted from a system to perform work, while zero point energy is the residual energy that remains in a system even at absolute zero temperature.