Harnessing Dark Energy: Can We Make It Happen?

[deanbo]

Has it been proven to exist, and if it has, has anyone succeeded in conerting it into another energy such as electricity?

 

[Academic]

It has evidence that it exists. "Proven" is a very hard to impossible thing to do usually. The theory that uses it is the most accurate and least assumptive theory yet developed. I think the best known observation of it is the casmir effect.

 

[K^2]

has anyone succeeded in conerting it into another energy such as electricity?

In order to get energy out of something, you must take that something to lower energy level.

If you can come up with something with even less energy than absolute vacuum, let somebody know. There are tons of applications, with energy extraction being perhaps the most boring.

By all reasoning, if you pull energy out of vacuum, you create negative gravitational mass. And that's anti-gravity, warp drives, wormholes, etc.

Unfortunately, it does seem rather impossible at the moment.

 

[Antiphon]

Interesting viewpoint. Before taking the vacuum even lower in energy, let's ask how we might take it up a notch but without adding any of the usual suspects like particles or EM fields? This should be a tad easier than going below zero, right?

 

[K^2]

Again, Casimir Effect works. But I'm not really sure if the energy is added to the vacuum between the plates, or outside.

One of the two might actually be lowered, if the net is increased, come to think of it. Maybe Casimir Effect can be used to lower vacuum energy in small localized area. Hmm... I'm going to run some numbers.