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Re: Sci. Am. Frontiers



The real point should be that the energy in the vacuum should be at a very
low temperature, and hence not usable.

On Wed, 19 Nov 1997, William Beaty wrote:

Tonight the topic of the PBS SciAm Frontiers episode was fringe science,
including dowsing, graphology, alien autopsy, theraputic touch, and (my
favorite!), zero-point energy machines.

As a counterpoint to the researchers in the ZPE machines segment, they had
Dr. Weinberg state that the ZPE, the vacuum's sea of virtual particles,
could be of no use because it has a very low value for energy density,
similar to the energy in a gal. of gasoline distributed across a volume
the size of planet Earth. He pointed out that if it were large, its mass
would interfere with modern cosmological theories.

Now I'm very confused. Is this low value for ZPE part of normal physics?
I was under the impression that various theories predict different values
for the energy density of the virtual particle sea, but all on the order
of the energy density of the nucleus (or much more.) This is old Feynman
stuff from decades ago, no? It has always been my understanding that
conventional, conservative scientists agree that "free energy devices" are
ridiculous NOT because the ZPE density is low, but because there is no
easy way to make macroscopic use of the ZPE (other than by things like
Casmir effect on parallel conductive plates.)

Now here's the Scientific American debunking the search for ZPE-tapping
devices by implying that physicists believe the energy contained in the
vacuum to be uselessly small. If this is not a majority opinion in
physics, then it sounds to me like SciAm is itself adopting one "crackpot"
viewpoint in order to debunk another. No fair!


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