Casimir Effect

 Quantum mechanics was born as a result of physicist Max Planck attempting to resolve the empirical black body radiation problem i.e., the electromagnetic emission of a body. 

A black body is an idealized physical body that can absorb all incident light that shines upon it, regardless of its frequency or angle of incidence. This feature also grants it the property of being an ideal perfect thermal radiation or heat emitter. 

Classical theory predicts that when radiated with increasing intensity, such an object will emit an infinite and continuous energy when approaching ultraviolet frequencies, a divergence known as the ultraviolet catastrophe. Experiments with light bulbs, for instance, showed instead that radiance does not go to infinity, it reaches a certain maximum and then decreases.

Planck found that experiments could only be explained if the energy had values which are multiples of an elementary unit hf (where f is the frequency and h is a constant), which opposed the classical assumption of a smooth curve for which emitted energy can have any continuous value. This energy quantization in integers of hf marked the birth of quantum mechanics and introduced one of its fundamental constants, the Planck constant h. 

The resulting Planck's law showed that even at zero Kelvin, oscillations still occur, resulting in what Planck coined zero point energy (ZPE)— or quantum vacuum fluctuations— corresponding to the ground state energy.

The ZPE is responsible for fundamental phenomena of quantum mechanics such as Spontaneous Emission, Lamb Shift, and Casimir Effect. 

Hendrik Casimir predicted that two mirrors in vacuum experience a force that pushes the plates together due to the cavity between the plates eliminating a percentage of the vacuum fluctuations modes between producing an energy gradient resulting in a force. 

This was confirmed experimentally in 1997, and more recently the dynamical Casimir effect and the Casimir torque have allowed direct evidence of the vacuum fluctuations, leaving no doubt of their existence. 

Not only are ZPE responsible for critical quantum effects, they are at the base of the origin of mass and the Nature of Gravity.

Nassim Haramein