Zero Point Energy: Exploring the Material Universe

[redhedkangaro]

I was wondering if my thought on Zero Point Field was correct. First of all is it part of the material universe?

Second, is it kind of like an ether or mediam through which things move through?

 

[Chronos]

The most notable property of ZPE is the casimir effect - a consequence of the wave properties of photons, and virtual particles popping in and out of existence in 'empty' space. Since empty space does not actually exist in our universe, the contributions of virtual particles to the casimir effect are difficult to quantify observationally.

 

[aristurtle]

I was wondering if my thought on Zero Point Field was correct. First of all is it part of the material universe?

Second, is it kind of like an ether or mediam through which things move through?

I guess nobody knows exactly. Quantum field theory is a theory based on analogy ,if you have an experience on the knowledge structure of some ancient means of medicine ,like chinese medicine,you should know what "analogy" means. in quantum mechanics, we have a microscopic structure at first ,and then quantize some quantity of the structure. But in quantum field theory we do not know what the microscopic stucture is. We don't know the lagrangain like the golden times that we "observe" the microscopic physics to deduce it.instead ,we guess it from the equation of motion,like dirac equation.
We just simpley imagined what spacetime with quantum fields should liik like, from analogy with continuous media dynamics ,that space is filled with tiny springs oscillates in the way that quantum mechanics already know. Exactly, we quantize certain fouries modes of the "wave" in this "media" , and the modes wave length can be arbitarily small, which in turns means that the tiny springs is coutinuous distributed in the space, in arbitarily small reagions you can always find tiny springs ascillates there ,and every one of them have the same amplitute of zero point energy. So the vacuum energy diverges, to have infinite value in any area of arbitary size, if you take into account every fourie mode.