
A Commentary On Vacuum Energy
Date: Sunday, July 23, 2006 @ 15:24:02 UTC Topic: Science
by Mark A. Solis
Energy From The Vacuum: How Much Is There?
Dan Solomon’s recent announcement that there may be energy states below the vacuum state is fairly interesting, if not completely unexpected. (See previous post: Some new results concerning the vacuum in Dirac’s hole theory)
The vacuum energy has been estimated at values ranging from 10^31 Joules per cubic centimeter to 10^120 Joules per cubic centimeter. Any way you look at it, there is a huge amount of energy present.
Heretofore, it appeared that what might be driving devices that draw on vacuum energy (such as the Correa device) was a charge pumping action resulting from the "re-disordering" of ordered fields by the very chaos of the boiling quantum vacuum itself. (This idea, incidentally, has been my own opinion on the matter, based on the manifestation of output on the trailing edges of the high voltage excitation pulses used in Correa's PAGD devices.) This chaos would represent entropy "at the end of the road" as you follow energy (or motivity) in our world down to zero, the vacuum state.
Now, however, Dan Solomon throws a monkey wrench in the works with his discovery that you can extract energy from BELOW the vacuum state. (MORE than 10^120 J/cm^3?) Oh, the implications….
Matrix Dirac: "Let off some steam, Bennett"
For those who saw Schwarzenegger's "Commando," that's a little pun. Nonetheless, it is a relevant pun. Allow me to explain:
Dirac's Hole Theory of the vacuum is part and parcel of a wave model that reveals an underlying structure to the vacuum which no one ever would have expected to exist IF the vacuum state was the end of the entropic road.
Turns out it's only an intersection….
Consider this quote from the current Wikipedia [re: Dirac Sea]:
"On the other hand, the field formulation does not eliminate all the difficulties raised by the Dirac sea; in particular, the problem of the vacuum possessing infinite energy is not so much resolved as swept under the carpet." (Boldface italics by me.)
The bottom line is that no one wanted to believe that this could be the case. The same thing happened over the positron issue until positrons were shown to exist by Carl Anderson in 1932.
The demonstration that positrons exist tended to force the issue. Again, to quote the current Wikipedia [re: Dirac Sea]:
"The Dirac sea is a theoretical model of the vacuum as an infinite sea of particles possessing negative energy."
There is energy on this side of the vacuum state, and negative energy on the other side. Here, we experience entropy. On the other side, there is negentropy.
The complete structure of the quantum vacuum, then, is a great matrix of sorts (caveat: my description) with energy on this side, negative energy on the other side, and the "vacuum state" (with maximum entropy, and hence maximum negentropy) in the middle---the boiling chaos of the spontaneous emission and annihilation of electron-positron pairs.
Without getting unduly technical about how this translates into available energy---
How much energy can we extract from the quantum vacuum? If we assume a symmetry based on something like Newton's First Law (yes, I know, that's oversimplifying it), then there is at least as much energy below the vacuum state as there is above it.
How much is here?
How powerful was the Big Bang when the universe was created?
It seems safe to say that there is plenty of energy to be had from below the vacuum state. It's only a matter of how far we can reach into the other side. (And that's pretty far.)
To paraphrase the way comedian Jay Leno might put it, "Take all you want. We'll get more."
Good Things Come In Small Packages: A Speculation
One last note of interest is that it seems to me that the more we learn about how to extract vacuum energy, the smaller the space from which we seem to be extracting it.
Consider the previously mentioned energy densities of the quantum vacuum: from 10^31 to 10^120 Joules per cubic centimeter. We are talking whopping energy from a tiny space. And that is from the vacuum state.
Could it be--that the farther we reach into the realm of negenery and negentropy (below the vacuum state), the smaller the physical space involved? And could this mean that an infinitesimal space contains infinite (neg)energy?
If indeed the Dirac Sea truly is an infinte sea of particles of negative energy, then this almost certainly is the case.
Tomorrow's "free energy" device may be nothing more than a ring on your finger--so you won't lose it!
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