ZPEnergy.com - Casimir Force Attracts Research

Purdue University researchers have made precise measurements of the Casimir force—a force that has massive implications for nanotechnology and could offer insights into zero point energy.

The team has released some of their findings in a news release. According to this group of scientists, the Casimir force is the minute pressure that real and virtual photons of light exert when they bump against an object. When two very small objects are extremely close together, the "photonic pressure" on the outside of each object is stronger than on the inside and tends to drive the two toward each other. Purdue physicist Ephraim Fischbach, a lead researcher on the team, said the implications are much bigger than first glance. He said, "For the nanotechnologists, this discovery means a new tool in their belt. But for a theorist like me, it's also exciting because it could help me with my next experiment, which aims to find out whether the universe has more dimensions than we think. So this is just the prelude – stay tuned." You can read the news release at: http://news.uns.purdue.edu/html4ever/030811.Fischbach.casimir.html