Zero Point Engery

[dreamwalker]

Zero point energy for me has always been a vague, speculative area of science that I was waiting for CNN or some other news channel to spotlight and suddenly announce a breakthrough in one of the preceeding technologies that enabled all the pieces to come together.
It seems that all the technologies actually exist or at least are not necessary for small workable versions. Infact, versions of these generators have existed for decades.
The whole idea for me seemed to break the conservation of energy law, stating that energy can't be created out of nothing, nor can it be destroyed. It is a rule that I infact stated to question when learning about the Casimir Effect which explains how energy is created when the number of wavelengths possible becomes imbalanced... Along with many other scientific theorys, I thought they where interesting to read, but casually resigned the information to the far in the future part of my brain.
With Zero Point Energy however, its becoming apparent that it will soon over take all our energy sources within the near future.


New Science and a Revolutionary Energy Breakthrough
Posted on Thursday, June 16, 2005 @ 21:38:06 PDT by vlad

By Mark Goldes, Chairman & CEO, Magnetic Power Inc.

New science is opening the way to fuel-free power and propulsion and a turnaround of Global Warming. Conventional wisdom suggests we will be dependent on oil, gas, coal and nuclear power for the foreseeable future. Alternative energy is thought to be limited to solar, wind, fuel-cells and biofuels, etc. However, a revolutionary family of energy conversion technologies has emerged that is likely to prove extremely important. This breakthrough requires no fuel and produces no pollution. It opens a path to cost competitive electric power, automotive, and later aerospace propulsion.....

http://www.zpenergy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1357

Should I be investing in these companies? Or atleast taking on new shares... I'm gunna be skeptical for a little longer... I find it hard to embrace what I do not fully understand.

If your interested, I suggest you google the term 'zero point energy', lots of interesting stuff out there.
If your and expert, I would like you to explain why this isn't, or hasn't been headline news already..

 

[Brian G Turner]

Zero-point? If it's what I'm thinking of, the problem isn't energy generation as much as *net* energy generation...

 

[cyborg_cinema]

Should I be investing in these companies? Or atleast taking on new shares... I'm gunna be skeptical for a little longer... I find it hard to embrace what I do not fully understand.

I found an article by a ZPE skeptic who goes into detail about ZPE, though it is not all that easy to understand: This Universe - Prof Yash Pal

If it ever pans out, ZPE will probably be used in military and space applications before it ever goes mainstream.

 

[dreamwalker]

that article is rubbish, he does on to describe one of theories of what ZPE is -
with this quote which is just nonesense

The fact that you cannot cool the sample any further inversely implies that you cannot extract any more energy from it.

ZPE has nothing to do with matter, talking about the spins of bossons and fermions, just goes to confuse and cloud the fact he doesn't really know what he's talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy
If it makes no sense the first time, re-read it.

Zero-point? If it's what I'm thinking of, the problem isn't energy generation as much as *net* energy generation...

Could you elaborate on that?

 

[Foxbat]

Okay - here's what I don't understand - and let's move up a level to electrons etc.

The one thing that stops electrons being attracted to and absorbed by a positively charged nucleus is its kinetic energy - without it nothing would exist because as soon as the kinetic energy level drops below the energy level of electromagnetic attraction, protons and electrons would combine. ZPE is based on the lowest point of kinetic energy (zero). How can this be so? It just doesn't make any sense to me

 

[Brian G Turner]

My bad - I was thinking of vacuum energy...

In which case, zero-point sounds more like a theoretical principle - kind of reminds me of constructs such as the quantum demon, where there is some theoretical barrier to the original assumptions. I know someone has posted a link to a zero-point energy source, but I'd really need a reference from science press, such as New Scientist, to give it some degree of credibility. If someone can produce zero-point energy without violating the Heisenberg Principle, then I should presume that is news and New Scientist hasn't been afraid to cover controversial subjects in the past. Not subscribed at the moment, but has it been covered?

 

[dreamwalker]

The one thing that stops electrons being attracted to and absorbed by a positively charged nucleus is its kinetic energy - without it nothing would exist because as soon as the kinetic energy level drops below the energy level of electromagnetic attraction, protons and electrons would combine.

Well, technically, they do, thats why it takes alot of energy to strip electrons from there protons (ie plasma). No one actually knows what an atom looks like, the ideas of electrons and protons as particles with spin is used as a simplification to make maths easier. The truth is electrons act more like waves, eg photons they defract, and interfere. Another way to look at atoms would be to see it as a fine electron cloud attracted to a proton core, the bigger the proton, the denser the elctron cloud.
And when you step down another level, you learn that protons and electrons are made up of (imaginary?) particles called quarks...

ZPE is based on the idea that you can never get the ground state energy of a vacuum to absolute zero, therefore you could keep on extracting energy from this space. There is a cut off for the amount of energy you could take(involing plancks constant), however in theory, you could keep on removing energy from space because in the Heisenberg Uncertanty Principle, it forbids this from happening.

My bad - I was thinking of vacuum energy...

there all pretty much related. dark energy, vacuum energy, zero point energy, until more research is done, or more is done in terms of explaing his to the layman, these terms will contine to be causualy passed around.
The article I posted, which I found from following a link on the wikipedia.org site suggests there are patented devicies that use this technology already.

ZPE will probably be used in military and space applications before it ever goes mainstream.

As with most of the major technologies over the last 60 years, it's not necessary a bad thing. Imagine if the military had developed drugs to combat AID's, it would have been irradicated in the 80's, with the drugs being low cost instead of the monopilys that exist in the ultra competitive pharmacutical's market.

 

[Stalker]

If it ever pans out, ZPE will probably be used in military and space applications before it ever goes mainstream.

*grumbling*
Apes, mere apes - nothing more...
Using findings to kill more likes instead of applying them to the service of human race!

 

[cyborg_cinema]

How can this be so? It just doesn't make any sense to me

...maybe energy exists where the scientific community insists that nothing exists.

 

[cyborg_cinema]

Apes, mere apes - nothing more...

"You finally really did it! You maniacs! You blew it all to ____!"—Taylor

 

[Foxbat]

ZPE is based on the idea that you can never get the ground state energy of a vacuum to absolute zero, therefore you could keep on extracting energy from this space. There is a cut off for the amount of energy you could take(involing plancks constant), however in theory, you could keep on removing energy from space because in the Heisenberg Uncertanty Principle, it forbids this from happening.

I see your point but.....would it actually be a vacuum if it could never reach a ground state? And, if the energy is separate from matter(which is what this implies to me) then, given that matter and energy are linked (therefore Einstein's famous equation) where does the energy reside? Sorry if I seem stupid but this theory really confuses me

 

[cyborg_cinema]

...this theory really confuses me

If science never proves the ZPE theory, they will gain something by trying.

 

[Foxbat]

If science never proves the ZPE theory, they will gain something by trying.

Very true, It's all part of progress. I believe asking the questions to be just as important as receiving the answers

 

[dreamwalker]

would it actually be a vacuum if it could never reach a ground state? And, if the energy is separate from matter(which is what this implies to me) then, given that matter and energy are linked (therefore Einstein's famous equation) where does the energy reside?

It's a pritty sharp observation actually, and its pritty close to reality. Vacuum space is full with background radiation (from the bang bang and seperate to ZPE) in which the photons often combine to form solid matter, eg quarks, and these quarks, often combine and annihilate to form photons again, so even if you removed all the atoms from a confined area of space, it would still never be free of matter because of these 'virtual particles'.
Yes, this has nothing to do with ZPE either, just helping to clarify (or confuse?) this point.

 

[cyborg_cinema]

...'virtual particles'.

...you mean there would still be photons on the vacuum?

 

[dreamwalker]

...you mean there would still be photons on the vacuum?

short answer: yes
It's hard to answer that question because part different parts of physics relates to it. Besides the fact it is incredibly difficult to shield a confined area of space from any radiation, ZPE, the casmir effect, virtual particles, supergravity theory and many other effects suggest you can never get a an absolute vacuum....