Matter/energy in 'empty' space

[Tsunami]

I read somewhere the dictum that 'nothing can be done without at least a material base' ; the way the term matter was employed in this text implied that vacuum, 'empty' space, was to be viewed as matter-less.

This would mean that in empty space, nothing at all can be done. This leads to an important question:

Can empty space be made into matter/energy? And vice versa?

In other words, can something occur like :

A + vacuum -> B + C , where the matter/energy of B and C does not equate with that of A.


The vice versa is even more important: is there a way in which matter/energy 'deteriorates' and becomes something like empty space? Thanks.

 

[FunkyDwarf]

thats a weird statement that I've never heard and certainly you don't get something for nothing as per laws of dynamics, but on a tangent there is something called zero point energy. This is basically the idea that even a vacuum has a sort of ground state energy, and if you believe stargate science you can use it via a little yellow thing :)