Why Is Zero-Point Energy Gaining Credibility Despite Lack of Proof?

[wolram]

there is much written and on the web about ZPE it is an ofshoot
of real physics ,with as far as i know no proof.
my question is why anyone gives it creedence.
why has it become so important?
must go my overunity teamaker is boiling
best wishes

 

[Tyger]

One of my non-favorite subjects

is zero point energy. It started out as a bookkeeping trick to tease out the transition rates of atomic emissions by assuming that "empty" space was filled with harmonic oscillators at every frequency of the spectrum. But like a few other ideas it had a certain popular appeal so it became hyped as part of "pop" physics and it seems it has become immortal. We have better methods of obtaining the transition rates now and don't need the idea at all but no one seems able or willing to kill it.

 

[russ_watters]

I think its just because of the way the name sounds. It sounds high tech and has the word "energy" in it. Plus its highly theoretical - and science is already pretty much magic for a lot of people. So its easy to trick people into thinking its something that can be harnessed.

 

[wolram]

i find it disturbing that a theorists tool has become the crakpots
arc,modern science has ample unintuitive theories that are difficult
to comprehend already.
maybe its a lesson for all, including cosmologists that one
cannot take something from nothing, or make something from
nothing.
best wishes.