Zero-Point Field

The Zero-Point Field (ZPF) is said to exist in a vacuum -- what is commonly thought of as empty space -- at a temperature of absolute zero (where all thermal radiation is absent; a condition obtained when reaching a temperature of absolute zero on the Kelvin scale). The background energy of the vacuum serves as the reference, or zero point, for all processes. Theoretical considerations indicate the ZPF should be a background sea of electromagnetic radiation that is both uniform and isotropic (the same in all directions).

The uniform and isotropic nature of the ZPF is important, and explains why it is not readily observed. Fundamentally, the lack of asymmetry of the ZPF prevents its easy identification, just as a fish being absolutely still in a sea of constant temperature and pressure water is unable to detect the water itself.

In some cases, motion through a medium can give rise to asymmetries, thus in turn allowing for the detection of the medium. However, in the case of the ZPF, motion through the “medium” (i.e. the field) at a constant velocity has not been shown to make the field detectable. This is because the field has the property of being "Lorentz invariant." (Lorentz invariance is a critical difference between the modern ZPF and nineteenth-century concepts of an ether.) In fact, the ZPF becomes detectable only when a body is accelerated through space.

There is, of course, a fundamental difference between “detectable” and “useable”. It is likely necessary to go beyond a simple, constant acceleration through space (in order to detect the ZPF), and instead, transition into a variable acceleration in order to tap into the energy of the ZPF. In this case, we can assume with a reasonable confidence that the greater the change in acceleration, the greater the energy derived from the ZPF.

Physicists Paul C. W. Davies and William G. Unruh, showed in the mid 1970s that a moving observer distorts the ZPF spectrum by accelerating through the field. Furthermore, this distortion increases with increasing acceleration. Extending these findings would suggest highly variable accelerations could provide increased distortions, and that these distortions could be used as an energy source. While these distortions are small, they add up rapidly. At the same time, detailed analysis shows that the distortions are fundamentally the origin of inertia.

In this regard, it has been shown that when an electromagnetically interacting particle is accelerated through the ZPF, a force is exerted on the charge. Furthermore, the force is proportional to the acceleration, but acts in the direction opposite to it. I.e., the charge experiences an electromagnetic force as resistance to acceleration. Which is the equivalent of the inertia of a massive particle, what Sir Isaac Newton regarded as an innate property of matter. Importantly, this allows for the idea that Newton’s Second Law (i.e. F = ma) can be derived from the laws of electrodynamics, provided one assumes a ZPF.

Additionally, it is no longer necessary to assume a physical quantity known as Mass, which has the property of inertia, in order to explain a resistance to acceleration. What is seen as inertia is nothing more than an effect caused by an electromagnetic force acting on a charge. In effect, charge and its interaction with the ZPF creates what we experience as mass. Mass may, in fact, be an illusion.

If the ZPF gives rise to the phenomenon of inertia, does it in some way generate the effect of gravity? Andrei D. Sakharov suggested as much in 1968, an idea which was addressed 20 years later by Puthoff. Using stochastic electrodynamics, Puthoff showed that if a charged particle is subjected to ZPF interactions, it fluctuates, simultaneously causing charged particles everywhere in the universe to also fluctuate. These fluctuations result in electromagnetic fields, which have an attractive force between them. This force is much weaker than the electromagnetic attractive or repulsive forces between electric charges. It is also always an attractive force, which suggests it is simply gravity. [1]

The fluctuations are relativistic -- i.e. moving at velocities at or close to the speed of light. The energy associated with the fluctuations can then be interpreted as the energy equivalent of gravitational rest mass. Since the gravitational force is caused by these fluctuations, physics no longer needs the concept of a gravitational mass as the source of gravitation. Instead, the source of gravitation is based on electric charge in motion.

The ZPF can be thought of as a sea of radiation that fills the entire universe. It involves highly energetic emissions, with the Zero-Point Energy density rising proportional to the cube of the frequency of the radiation. This implies that by doubling the frequency, the energy increases by a factor of eight.

Because the energy density of the ZPF increases as the cube of the frequency, the amount of energy making up the ZPF is enormous. That energy, in the conventional view, is forced into existence by the laws of quantum mechanics. It is regarded in quantum fashion as sometimes real and sometimes virtual, depending on the problem at hand.

A competing theory with respect to the ZPF comes from an obscure discipline within physics known as stochastic electrodynamics, which postulates that the ZPF is as real as any other radiation field, in fact, as fundamental as the existence of the universe itself. The only difference between stochastic electrodynamics and ordinary classical physics is the single assumption of the presence of this all-pervasive, real ZPF, which happens to be an intrinsic part of the universe.

This single assumption is justified in part because much of quantum phenomena can be derived by adding the ZPF to classical physics. Furthermore, this can be done without invoking the usual laws or logic of quantum mechanics. This suggests the option of either accepting the laws of classical physics as only partly true, with the necessity of adding a set of quantum laws to complete the picture -- something currently done in physics today. Alternatively, one could accept the laws of classical physics as the only necessary laws, but merely supplemented by the presence of the ZPF.

"Zero Point Energy"

Zero Point Energy (ZPE), or vacuum fluctuation energy are terms used to describe the random electromagnetic oscillations that are left in a vacuum after all other energy has been removed. If you remove all the energy from a space, take out all the matter, all the heat, all the light... everything -- you will find that there is still some energy left. One way to explain this is from the uncertainty principle from quantum physics that implies that it is impossible to have an absolutely zero energy condition.

For light waves in space, the same condition holds. For every possible color of light, that includes the ones we can't see, there is a non-zero amount of that light. Add up the energy for all those different frequencies of light and the amount of energy in a given space is enormous, even mind boggling, ranging from 10^36 to 10^70 Joules/m3.

In simplistic terms it has been said that there is enough energy in the volume the size of a coffee cup to boil away Earth's oceans. - that's one strong cup of coffee! For a while a lot of physics thought that concept was too hard to swallow. This vacuum energy is more widely accepted today.

What evidence shows that it exists?

First predicted in 1948, the vacuum energy has been linked to a number of experimental observations. Examples include the Casimir effect, Van der Waal forces, the Lamb-Retherford Shift, explanations of the Planck blackbody radiation spectrum, the stability of the ground state of the hydrogen atom from radiative collapse, and the effect of cavities to inhibit or enhance the spontaneous emission from excited atoms.

The Casimir Effect:

The most straight-forward evidence for vacuum energy is the Casimir effect. Get two metal plates close enough together and this vacuum energy will push them together. This is because the plates block out the light waves that are too big to fit between the plates. Eventually you have more waves bouncing on the outside than from the inside, the plates will get pushed together from this difference in light pressure. This effect has been experimentally demonstrated.

With such large amount of energy, why is it so hard to notice?

Imagine, for example, if you lived on a large plateau, so large that you didn't know you were 1000 ft up. From your point of view, your ground is at zero height. As long as your not near the edge of your 1000 ft plateau, you won't fall off, and you will never know that your zero is really 1000. It's kind of the same way with this vacuum energy. It is essentially our zero reference point.

Brilliant Disguise: Light, Matter and the Zero-Point Field

Is matter an illusion? Is the universe floating on a vast sea of light, whose invisible power provides the resistance that gives to matter its feeling of solidity? Astrophysicist Bernhard Haisch and his colleagues have followed the equations to some compelling -- and provocative -- conclusions.

by Bernard Haisch

"God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light."

It is certainly a beautiful poetic statement. But does it contain any science? A few years ago I would have dismissed that possibility. As an astrophysicist, I knew all too well the blatant contradictions between the sequence of events in Genesis and the physics of the Universe. Even after substituting eons for days, the order of events was obviously wrong. It made no sense to have light come first, and then to claim that the Sun, the moon and the stars - the obvious sources of light in the night sky of the ancient world - were created only subsequently, be it days or eons later. One could, of course, generalize light to mean simply energy, and thus claim a reference to the Big Bang, but that would, to me, be more of a stretch than a revelation.

My first inkling that the deceptively simple "Let there be light" might actually contain a profound cosmological truth came in early July 1992. I was trying to wrap things up in my office in Palo Alto so that I could spend the rest of the summer doing research on the X-ray emission of stars at the Max Planck Institute in Garching, Germany. I came in one morning just before my departure and found a rather peculiar message on my answering machine; it had been left at 3 a.m.by a usually sober-minded colleague, Alfonso Rueda, a professor at California State University in Long Beach. He was so excited by the results of a horrifically-long mathematical analysis he had been grinding through that he just had to tell me about it, knowing full well I was not there to share the thrill.

What he had succeeded in doing was to derive the equation: F=ma. Details would follow in Germany.

Most people will take this in stride with a "so what?" or "what does that mean?" After all what are F, m and a, and what is so noteworthy about a scientist deriving a simple equation? Isn't this what scientists do for a living? But a physicist will have an incredulous reaction because you are not supposed to be able to derive the equation F=ma. That equation was postulated by Newton in his Principia, the foundation stone of physics, in 1687. A postulate is a law that you assume to be true, and from which other things follow: such as much of physics, for example, from that particular postulate. You cannot derive postulates. How do you prove that one plus one equals two? The answer is, you don't. You assume that abstract numbers work that way, and then derive other properties of addition from that basic assumption.

But indeed, as I discovered when I began to write up a research paper based on what Rueda soon sent to Garching, he had indeed derived Newton's fundamental "equation of motion." And the concept underlying this analysis was the existence of a background sea of light known as the electromagnetic zero-point field of the quantum vacuum.

To understand this zero-point field (for short), consider an old-fashioned grandfather clock with its pendulum swinging back and forth. If you don't wind the clock , friction will sooner or later bring the pendulum to a halt. Now imagine a pendulum that gets smaller and smaller, so small that it ultimately becomes atomic in size and subject to the laws of quantum physics. There is a rule in quantum physics called the Heisenberg uncertainty principle that states (with certainty, as it happens) that no quantum object, such as a microscopic pendulum, can ever be brought completely to rest. Any microscopic object will always possess a residual random jiggle thanks to quantum fluctuations.

Radio, television and cellular phones all operate by transmitting or receiving electromagnetic waves. Visible light is the same thing; it is just a higher frequency form of electromagnetic waves. At even higher frequencies, beyond the visible spectrum, you find ultraviolet light, X-rays and gamma-rays. All are electromagnetic waves which are really just different frequencies of light.

It is standard in quantum theory to apply the Heisenberg uncertainty principle to electromagnetic waves, since electric and magnetic fields flowing through space oscillate like a pendulum. At every possible frequency there will always be a tiny bit of electromagnetic jiggling going on. And if you add up all these ceaseless fluctuations, what you get is a background sea of light whose total energy is enormous: the zero-point field. The "zero-point" refers to the fact that even though this energy is huge, it is the lowest possible energy state. All other energy is over and above the zero-point state. Take any volume of space and take away everything else - in other words, create a vacuum - and what you are left with is the zero-point field. We can imagine a true vacuum, devoid of everything, but the real-world quantum vacuum is permeated by the zero-point field with its ceaseless electromagnetic waves.

The fact that the zero-point field is the lowest energy state makes it unobservable. We see things by way of contrast. The eye works by letting light fall on the otherwise dark retina. But if the eye were filled with light, there would be no darkness to afford a contrast. The zero-point field is such a blinding light. Since it is everywhere, inside and outside of us, permeating every atom in our bodies, we are effectively blind to it. It blinds us to its presence. The world of light that we do see is all the rest of the light that is over and above the zero-point field.

We cannot eliminate the zero-point field from our eyes, but it is possible to eliminate a little bit of it from the region between two metal plates. (Technically, this has to do with conditions the electromagnetic waves must satisfy on the plate boundaries.) A Dutch physicist, Hendrik Casimir, predicted in 1948 exactly how much of the zero-point field would end up being excluded in the gap between the plates, and how this would generates a force, since there is then an overpressure on the outside of the plates. Casimir predicted the relation between the gap and the force very precisely. You can, however, only exclude a tiny fraction of the zero-point field from the gap between the plates in this way. Counterintuitively, the closer the plates come together, the more of the zero-point field gets excluded, but there is a limit to this process because plates are made up of atoms and you cannot make the gap between the plates smaller than the atoms that constitute the plates. This Casimir force has now been physically measured, and the results agree very well with his prediction.

The discovery that my colleague first made in 1992 also has to do with a force that the zero-point field generates, which takes us back to F=ma, Newton's famous equation of motion. Newton - and all physicists since - have assumed that all matter possesses an innate mass, the m in Newton's equation. The mass of an object is a measure of its inertia, its resistance to acceleration, the a. The equation of motion, known as Newton's second law, states that if you apply a force, F, to an object you will get an acceleration, a - but the more mass, m, the object possesses, the less acceleration you will get for a given force. In other words, the force it takes to accelerate a hockey puck to a high speed will barely budge a car. For any given force, F, if m goes up, a goes down, and vice versa.

Why is this? What gave matter this property of possessing inertial mass? Physicists sometimes talk about a concept known as "Mach's Principle" but all that does is to establish a certain relationship between gravity and inertia. It doesn't really say how all material objects acquire mass. In fact, the work that Rueda, I and another colleague, Hal Puthoff, have since done indicate that mass is, in effect, an illusion. Matter resists acceleration not because it possesses some innate thing called mass, but because the zero-point field exerts a force whenever acceleration takes place. To put it in somewhat metaphysical terms, there exists a background sea of quantum light filling the universe, and that light generates a force that opposes acceleration when you push on any material object. That is why matter seems to be the solid, stable stuff that we and our world are made of.

Saying this is one thing. Proving it scientifically is another. It took a year and a half of calculating and writing and thinking, over and over again, to refine both the ideas themselves and the presentation to the point of publication in a professional research journal. On an academic timescale this was actually pretty quick, and we were able to publish in what is widely regarded as the world's leading physics journal, the Physical Review, in February 1994. To top it off, Science and Scientific American ran stories on our new inertia hypothesis. We waited for some reaction. Would other scientists prove us right or prove us wrong? Neither happened.

At that point in my career I was already a fairly well-established scientist, being a principal investigator on NASA research grants, serving as an associate editor of the Astrophysical Journal, and having many dozens of publications in the parallel field of astrophysics. In retrospect, my experience should have warned me that we had ventured into dangerous theoretical waters, that we were going to be left on our own to sink or swim. Indeed, I would probably have taken the same wait-and-see attitude myself had I been on the outside looking in.

An alternative to having other scientists replicate your work and prove that you are right is to get the same result yourself using a completely different approach. I wrote a research proposal to NASA and Alfonso buried himself in new calculations. We got funding and we got results. In 1998, we published two new papers that again showed that the inertia of matter could be traced back to the zero-point field. And not only was the approach in those papers completely different than in the 1994 paper, but the mathematics was simpler while the physics was more complete: a most desireable combination. What's more, the original analysis had used Newtonian classical physics; the new analysis used Einsteinian relativistic physics.

As encouraged as I am, it is still too early to say whether history will prove us right or wrong. But if we are right, then "Let there be light" is indeed a very profound statement, as one might expect of its purported author. The solid, stable world of matter appears to be sustained at every instant by an underlying sea of quantum light.

But let's take this even one step further. If it is the underlying realm of light that is the fundamental reality propping up our physical universe, let us ask ourselves how the universe of space and time would appear from the perspective of a beam of light. The laws of relativity are clear on this point. If you could ride a beam of light as an observer, all of space would shrink to a point, and all of time would collapse to an instant. In the reference frame of light, there is no space and time. If we look up at the Andromeda galaxy in the night sky, we see light that from our point of view took 2 million years to traverse that vast distance of space. But to a beam of light radiating from some star in the Andromeda galaxy, the transmission from its point of origin to our eye was instantaneous.

There must be a deeper meaning in these physical facts, a deeper truth about the simultaneous interconnection of all things. It beckons us forward in our search for a better, truer understanding of the nature of the universe, of the origins of space and time - those "illusions" that yet feel so real to us.

Bernhard Haisch, staff physicist at the Lockheed Martin Solar & Astrophysics Laboratory in Palo Alto, California, is a scientific editor of The Astrophysical Journal and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Scientific Exploration.