In A Quantum First, Light Is Created From A Vacuum

So.. Let me get this straight. If you make something essentially vibrate a few billion times a second, you can make a wave length about the size of of a microwave...

Of Course when you make something vibrate you generate a wave. I would imagine even in a void, when an object is forced to vibrate it sheds SOME sort of material..

Heck, i could have told these guys this and they would not have had to spend time and energy..

WOW!!!!!
(I guess)

Interesting, I would be curious to see if the efficiency could be increased, it may be possible if the SQUID's relative speed is increased.

Actually, the reason this is interesting is that it means we now have a NEW way to energy waves in space that simply involves the use of magnetic fluctuations. Being able to generate and then direct these waves would be a big help for space exploration if you look at the applications for vacuum propulsion.

Good for them in waiting for peer reviews before going public.... wait... how did it end up on Popsci? lol

I don't understand why they would go through all the trouble of running these experiments when they could just post the theory on Popsci. The geniuses on here will not only figure it out but give you all kinds of "practical" real world uses. I was just reading the back cover of War And Peace so I am an expert on the subject if you guys have any questions.

In the NIST-CODATA fundamental physical constants' recommended values, the speed of light in a vacuum is given as 299792458 meters/second...it is always given as "in a vacuum", so creating a spark of light "in a vacuum" is new information?

That would be quite interesting, if they deigned to clear what is delta between in & out energies. so far, it looks Just like idiotic joke XD

I'm not convinced either, since the "vacuum" is contaminated by gravitational fields. Perhaps an interesting inverse relationship between light and gravitation will be deduced, however; that would be sweet.

"Everything not forbidden is mandatory." Murray Gell-Mann

A very interesting experiment which will help move our concept of reality along the road. The vibrating object would not be shedding material (easily tested for) and there can be no wave effect in an "empty" vacuum so it appears that they have created photons from "nothing" which is what we may eventually discover ... that all matter can pop in and out of existence. I wonder if they detected anti particles to balance the creation of the photons? I'm not even sure it's necessary.

Hope it pans out. Not only would it be a demonstration of quantum uncertainty in the fabric of space-tine, but could also be the first step n learning to harness zero-point energy.

Calm the cleverness...eyes wide open - Mark

@earthmatrix, light in a vacuum moving at said speed comes from a light source, no light source here...@mwa3c, no wave effect can be created in a vacumn unless there is something in the vacuum, they may have found that something

@drchuck1,so this means "something comes from nothing" so to speak...which would be like saying spacetime may in fact be zero mass|energy from which mass|energy appears with no apparent presence or source of mass|energy...hmmm,then what appears to us as a vacuum is but the presence of spacetime, only we are unable to measure its presence in relation to ourselves of course...cool.

I continue to think that Fred Hoyle's "steady-state theory of the Universe" is constantly being proven by the discoveries in physics, and that the "Big Bang theory" will go out with a whimper. [T.S. Eliot's poem: "This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper".]

@drchuck1 theyre talking about "virtual particles" that pop in and out of existence so the only way to capture or observe them would be to match their speeds and intercept to expose them very quickly before they disappear.

doesnt this go against the law of conservation of energy though? there has to be something being introduced from either the "mirror" or outside...

It seems they are causing an em filed to move within a gravitational field and they are seeing particles being created, but the particles are not being created from nothing, they must be an after effect of the field interactions, so no way this violates the laws of thermodynamics.

And I believe they must be expending much more energy to make this happen than they are getting out in particle creation.

This could be the basis someday of a ZPM, but obviously this is the first elementary step towards that.

Is it really something out of nothing if the result of the experiment was due to the temporary existence of particles in the vacuum?

@Good news everybody

The "law of energy conservation" is a classical law. In a quantum world, energy conservation may be violated for brief periods of time.

@3ddraft

That is the point. We are trying to advance the theory that the concept of an "empty vacuum" is not completely accurate. There is nowhere in space that you will never find some type of particle, anti particle, or virtual particle. Part of this theory they want to prove is that the very fabric of space itself is made up of "stuff"

A vacuum I guess would be a space or void consisting of nothing. The researchers wish to invent light in this space. Their goal is to make “Light of Nothing!” Now they do believe they have achieved their goal, but they are waiting until their peers too, can confirm they are making “Light of Nothing”
To the rest of the world, PoPSCi is actively passing on to the world of possible confirmation, that “Light Of Nothing” is been made. Oki-Doki………

Back in the day they used to call that "stuff" ether (they used to think light waves traveled through the ether--since waves need a medium to travel through).

Then they decided space was empty, and that light traveled as a particle-wave, and that's how it was able to travel.

Now they are starting to theorize again that actually space-time isn't really "nothing" but consists of virtual particles... (but I guess they won't call it "ether")...

Still, all very fascinating stuff--particularly with great philosophical implications for what exactly "nothing" even means :D

"Parmenides stated that there are two ways of inquiry: that it is, that it is not.[12] He said that the latter argument is never feasible because nothing can not be:
For never shall this prevail, that things that are not are. (B 7.1)
There are extremely delicate issues here. In the original Greek the two ways are simply named "that Is" (ὅπως ἐστίν) and "that Not-Is" (ὡς οὐκ ἐστίν) (B 2.3 and 2.5) without the "it" inserted in our English translation." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmenides

^^ interesting guy

That'll show the creationists we finally have created Something from Nothing.

I like to have a job, where I get paid for making "Light Of Nothing" and wait for my peers to confirm on this. I suspect their peers will confirm quickly, that "Light Of Nothing" made, when they read about it in PoPSci.

This is all just to silly. Really!

I think that the claims of success hear are premature. Most likely the results are do to some systemic error of some sort. As an alternative to Quantum Theory there is a new theory that describes and explains the mysteries of physical reality. While not disrespecting the value of Quantum Mechanics as a tool to explain the role of quanta in our universe. This theory states that there is also a classical explanation for the paradoxes such as EPR and the Wave-Particle Duality. The Theory is called the Theory of Super Relativity and is located at: www.superrelativity.org
This theory is a philosophical attempt to reconnect the physical universe to realism and deterministic concepts. It explains the mysterious.

Here is a fun fact to ponder. Here we have super smart scientist and we find it really really hard to create light in a vacuum. But, what was the single thing created first, when there was nothing, biblically speaking? Any guesses? In the emptiness, "Light" was created first! Ta-da!

In some distant point in the future, one lone scientist will create the ability to time travel. Since science is always improving on life and health, he decides to go to the more distant future and learn all he can learn about human health. After learning about human health, he returns to his own conception and corrects any and all human DNA problems and other health problems. He also sees to his own education as a baby, child to an adult. His adult self they grow even smarter and with perfect health, invent the time machine. He can live as long as he wants and travel anywhere he wants and has as much time need to accomplish any of his goals. So they he learns all and has all the power and begins to create new universes, over and over and over again! Continuing into the distant future for him he does continue to grow in perfection and anything else in the universe that comes close to him is containment. So he is one and alone. Though he has no desire to be alone and has much love in his heart. So he creates life. But life and not speak to him or see him or be close to him. Life will always have a distance from him. So he created Angels to carry his words. He gives his Angels power too and one becomes evil. He removes this evil angel from heave and puts him among the living. Why does the evil one continue and walk with life. Well life can see and know the evil one and this gives confirmation of the evil one and more important the all important ONE, the creator!

In some distant point in the future, one lone scientist will create the ability to time travel. Since science is always improving on life and health, he decides to go to the more distant future and learn all he can learn about human health. After learning about human health, he returns to his own conception and corrects any and all human DNA problems and other health problems. He also sees to his own education as a baby, child to an adult. His adult self then grows smarter and with perfect health, inventing the time machine, again. He can live as long as he wants and travel anywhere he wants and has as much time need to accomplish any of his goals. So then he learns all and has all the power and begins to create new universes, over and over and over again! Continuing into the distant future for him he does continue to grow in perfection and anything else in the universe that comes close to him would soil his perfection. So he is one and alone. Though he has no desire to be alone and has much love in his heart. So he creates life. But this new life can not speak to him or see him or be close to him. Life will always have a distance from him. So he created Angels to carry his words. He gives his Angels power too and one becomes evil. He removes this evil angel from heaven and puts him among the living. Why does allow the evil one to continue and walk with life. Well life can see and know the evil one and this gives confirmation of the evil one and more important, then life will know, there is the all important ONE, the creator!

Yes it can be impossible to think or believe in God, when you see the world equal as yourself. But when scientifically speaking, when you take in account how old everything is in the universe and conceed that there could be another life, somewhere else, existing a billion times smarter than yourself, is it really so hard to inmagine GOD?

@BubbaGump, on your last post, that wouldn't be God then would it? It would be an alien race that's super intelligent, not a singular being that created all.

On topic, grated this is in it's infancy, but we know that space/time is tangable, our own planet dimples and pulls it as we spin. A vacuum thus isn't a void, because it still contains at least 2 things, Space and Time. Since space/time is tangable and resides within the vacuum, than creating something with it is less "something from nothing" and more "something from something". We just don't quite understand *WHAT* Seeing that we've proven that space/time has materialistic properties, no vacuum could/should ever be referred to as completely void of anything/everything. As of right now, one cannot remove space/time from any location.

My opinion, whatever they are shooting at this jar is interacting on a multidimentional level that we still don't fully grasp. Who knows what exactly those "sparks" are and what else is being created that we can't even begin to detect!

Playing Devil's Advocate since 1978

"The only constant in the universe is change"
-Heraclitus of Ephesus 535 BC - 475 BC

@CodeZero,
How many different words and languages have the word God, Lord, Agape and so forth.... You call it space alien, I call it, "Someone in charge!", maybe it’s the " Light in a Vacuum, the great void of space ".

@BubbaGump,
You are providing a great example of the major difference between those with a scientific mindset and those with a religious one.

Now granted this isn't a coverall, but in general:

Scientific minds, when shown undeniable proof, will conceed and accept.
Religious minds, when shown undeniable proof, will continue to deny.

Playing Devil's Advocate since 1978

"The only constant in the universe is change"
-Heraclitus of Ephesus 535 BC - 475 BC

this is similar to (replace '|' by '/' and '_' by '.'):
www_popsci_com|science|article|2010-12|making-something-nothing-theory-says-matter-can-be-conjured-vacuum

and as I said there:

suppose we are able to master this technology and say we start creating photons from an enclosed vacuum and removing these photons to create electricity, then what? will we empty the vacuum? and then face the question what is the vacuum of vacuum? get it? we emptied the thing we now call vacuum, so what is this new thing the emptied vacuum? or will vacuum never be emptied in that case we would have broke the laws of thermodynamics!!!

but too soon to speak of that now. The scientists need to confirm that the output energy is greater than the input energy. cause you know they might have just found a way to create light from vibrating SQUID. must now go to the fish market to test this theory, hope they have squids :D

@maa105, a Vacuum, is defined as a space devoid of matter, which I concur might need to be redefined, and the closer we get to getting a handle on the quantum relm, it very well might be forced to do so!

Playing Devil's Advocate since 1978

"The only constant in the universe is change"
-Heraclitus of Ephesus 535 BC - 475 BC

Not convinced, maybe something is missing?! some logic maybe, i prefer the Squids test :p

@CodeZero

You're assuming that all religious and scientific minds are alike. And you're assuming that no one questions the facts of this world like real scientists should. Take that into account the next time you want to make a broad accusation.

If scientists are right, why are there increasing numbers of scientists supporting the theory of intelligent design?

Have fun all!

@3ddraft

Isn't religion, by the admittance of its adherents, a matter of faith? What exactly does that mean if not belief in spite of evidence to the contrary?

And for your second question, the answer is quite easy. There aren't.

Definition of an alien is someone a little different than yourself, on the outside of your boundaries wanting in. God is not an alien. He is the normal and lives in heaven. We are the humans, different than God wanting to be normal and wanting to live in heaven as well. The Cosmos is believed to be 13.7 years old by human judgment and standards. In all this time there has to be something billion times smarter and more capable than ourselves in existence. We humans can not be the only smarty’s around and aware of our existence. Scientifically speaking as we solve all our own questions in life and become more and more educated, where do you think we be a million or billion more years in the future? Or what is other intelligent like in the universe that is much older than us? Oh, yes, I believe there is much light to be found in the vacuum of space. Then there are the impossible questions of what was before the COSMOS and what is larger than the COSMOS itself? What is beyond the boundaries of the COSMOS, PAST, PRESTENT AND FUTURE TIME? What intelligence existed before and beyond the COSMOS and where are they now and what do they know?

The COSMOS is believe to be 13.7 BILLION years old by human standards.

@Siromar

I preface my comment by stating that I'm a Christian of no denomination. I believe what the Bible says. That in place...

Faith is a firm belief in something. What makes it confusing is that you have people who take that faith to a degree where they don't change even when presented with hard evidence. That goes for scientific and religious folks alike.

I'm not saying that this article is bad science... science is science. There can be bad agendas just like religion can have bad agendas. But science is science... the process of discovering the world around us.

So a simple answer to your question is again... quit lumping us all together. People are individuals and religion and science can exist together. Faith is not the disregard of any evidence, it's a person's belief in something based on the facts they know or are presented with and then choose to accept... scientific and religious minds both.

I've been wondering this for some time now. Since nature hates a vacuum,thanks to entropy, I believe, what would happen if we could actually make one. By vacuum, I mean absolutely nothing: not atoms, subatomic particles, etc... Would stuff just pop up? Does this sound like a "big bang"?

This article is NOT claiming something from nothing. It’s claiming that something’s always there….you just have to be at a frequency near the speed of light to observe it.

Vacuum doesn’t mean “nothing”. Matter does not exist in a vacuum, but light (photon), gravity, electromagnetism and special dimensions do.

…And I just realized the article it titles “Light Created”….no nothing was created, just observed. Don’t get giddy over a popsci article LMAO

Science is the physical and mathematical description of life around us humans. That description does not conflict with religion or my own Christian belief. My belief is Science is the physical and mathematical description of life around us humans that GOD has made. Since GOD is the creator of all the COSMOS, he is also the artist. It takes understanding, belief and faith at times to understand art and so it does to attempt to understand GOD. The Upper Paleolithic Culture is about 33,000 years old. This is the most recent human culture. The COSMOS is said to be 13.7 billion years old by human standards. I believe GOD has had a lot more time grow in wisdom than us tiny little humans. It would explain why us humans have a hard time trying to understand GOD and the COSMOS\ART he has made; to make sense of it all.

Vacum energy; We're one step closer to a Zero Point Module. The Ancients would be proud.

I know my little comments and ranting did go off from the point of this artical, lol. But in maintaining my off world rant, I just read " USA TODAY reports that the government added $5.3 trillion to its financial obligations last year. This brings the total of unfunded obligations, the gap between spending commitments and revenue, to a record $61.6 trillion, or $534,000 per household. " Well, I make a normal living and have an excellent credit rating. I live a simple life and bought a town home at a good price. I have a fix load at 5% interest rate. I wish to thank GOD for the blessings I am receiving. But if I walked up to my bank and ask for a loan of " 534,000 " with my excellent credit rating, they would say NO! Or in other words if I suddenly had to pay this as dept, I couldn't do it. I go bankrupt. What does this mean to me, in reading this artical from USA TODAY, the USA GOVERNEMENT AND IT'S PEOPLE HAVE GONE BANKRUPT. Ok, now I will let you all return to the orginal artical comments. Thank you.

LMFAO The USA will continue to go bankrupt as long as it is morally bankrupt as it is now. If the Godless ever get into power we will be headed directly into the Hunger Games

what if that light appeared from a parallel dimension? sort of like The Mist? i love the direction this is moving in. this will open doors to many new theories involving the existence of everything.

This article did not do a very a good job of explaining what exactly the scientist accomplished.

So I have a couple of questions. Can anyone recount how micro waves are created when not in a vacume?

Was the mirror in the vacuum? I assume, yes. What material was the mirror made of? I assume, something magnetic.

Then they used a magnetic field to move the mirror back and forth inside the vacuum at nearly 5% of the speed of light.

And they don't expect the mirror to loose a few of it's particles in the form of say, electromagnetic radiation?

Here is a nice little tidbit of information the politicians like everyone to forget. As I display this, it was a Democrat invention, but much time has past and the Republicians had much oprotunity to reverse and or change it. So with the passage of time, I hold both parties responsible. The social security system and the money supplying it was ahead of the game. The account was greatly full and bursting bubbling over with excess and interest. So at this time President Johnson, a democrat decided to put the excess money off the social security program to other uses. If you ask where this extra money came from. This money came from all the extra hard working baby boomers. Yes the same OLD baby boomers now we are all scared to pay for in social security and all the younger ones coming up the path. The money WAS IN THE ACCOUNT FROM THE HARD WORKING BABY BOOMERS TO SUPPORT THEM AND BEYOND, but it was spent and re-allocated by President Johnson. But do not kill all the democrats. I do repeat again, the Republicians have been often in power for a long time and could of change it too. So its a over all political problem. For the rest of us, WE ARE SCREWED!

I do accept traditionally in life all those in the bible never had a idea of retirement. They all did what they could as long as they could, until their time expired. I recommend to everyone, count you blessing everyday, love as much as you can and be good as good as you can be.

Nobody has the courage, BALLS, to speaking clearly and honestly and boldly to fix the current problem. They will continue the bath of being political and let some future babies starve. I call them cowards. They as politician volunteered to be in leadership positions, but in reality, they only wanted power, money, prestige and lack any courage to actually care about the people they voted them into power. They are all cowards!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Shameful cowards!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!........... still as I lay me down to sleep, I count my blessing and say thank you to GOD! Thank you GOD and please take care of all those are in need! God bless! Good night!

@Aldrons Last Hope
Do you not know what a virtual particle is? If you use virtual particles to make light then you are making something from nothing.

Each person, individual possesses or given the ability to make free choice, receive memories, see his environment around him and make choices for his own future. Scriptures as the best honesty recorded feeling, emotions, concepts, ideas of an individual at the time, by his own perception and as he believe godly influence. Gosh, not many back then had the ability to write. So much what was thought important was memorized by followers of the same faith or maybe they just respected the individual. It was tradition to memorize and recite important memories and stories. Some stories deemed important enough were later written down by a scribe. Scribes were also far and rare. These people or individuals noted what was important to themselves and others what they felt was important. There is more left out of the bible of scriptures than in quantity is left in. We are judge and will be judge by our OWN individual spirits and deeds. Following a tradition maybe a show of faith, but we are all given the ability of our own mind, imaginations, intelligence and choice. I will eventually meet my own maker and all the truth of my soul and choices will be revealed to me and my maker. God made me and knows what I am and my weakness. God is my father and forgives me of my sin. God makes the son and is my brother in life, so forgives me of my sin. But the spirit is the spirit of GOD and knows my true intentions in life and my soul. My spirit knows my true intentions of my actions as I will be judged. Do not show contempt to the spirit, soul; it is the truth.God is made of three, our dear Lord, our Savior and the Spirit. Know all that is important; for you will be judge by the three and all is one.

ignore aldrons last dope, she's just trolling

@aldrons

Where does any of what you've posted have any relevance to the article? I get on people attacking Christians when it doesn't result in constructive discussion. All you're doing is trying to instigate and argument. Please stop, I appreciate your zeal but when it diverges entirely from science, this is not the forum for it.

CodeZero, you miss a huge point. There is no contradicting evidence against believing in God. Science only ever deals in how things happen, never can it answer why. Religion only deals in why, never explaining how. Arguments to the contrary of either point can easily be dismissed as invalid. Arguments for one over the other are counterproductive.

@3ddraft, if you re-read what I wrote, I said it was a generalization and not a coverall. Never said anyone was right or wrong.

@scythelord, I'm not missing any point, but I guess you did. I never said that there was or wasn't a god, or that any one was right or wrong. what I said was that if God came down today, if undeniable proof (not just a belief or faith) was shown, scientific minds would concede and agree that, yes there is a God. But if it was proven, without any doubt that God was a creation of man to control man and is not in fact real, proven however with whatever information you want it to be... for the point of argument, again I'm not saying either way. But *IF* it were proven, the religious folks would still deny and say that God still exists and that the proof was the work of the devil.

So I go back to my statement.
Scientific minds accept proof, no matter what the truth may be.
Religious minds never will accept anything if it goes against their beliefs.

Playing Devil's Advocate since 1978

"The only constant in the universe is change"
-Heraclitus of Ephesus 535 BC - 475 BC

My immagination often wonders in different directions. Some call it A.D.D. I like to think of myself as a free thinking, multitasking genious, lol. Often in PoPSci I can go off different tangets of the artical. I do get distract easily too. I am religous and a Christian. I see and feel this very vivid in my heart. I do like and enjoy science. I do not think or feel science and my religion conflict. Science is about understand the world around is as factually as we can understand it. My religion appeals to my heart and soul. They are 2 different things. As I learn of some knew science or invention and make opinions, I often to bring part of my innerself and beliefs into play as well... it happens.

bubba please stop trolling. Thank you

yeah that makes perfect sesne . religious people will never accept things that go against their faith. thats the difference between scientific minds and religious ones.

any way back on topic
this is creating something from nothing.
since the virtual particles technically dont exsist. their nothing. so if you could harness them. it would be a zpm. or for people who dont watch Stargate. a magic glowing crystal looking thing that makes energy from nothing.

oh yeah quantum mechanics breaks every law of the universe at some point. thats why it works. lol

@lonefox, it got swamped by the normal faith/science bs, but since it's been proven that space/time has materialistic properties, a vacuum can never be void of substance. IMO this "something from nothing" isn't exactly a proper observation, if the earth can dimple, bend and twirl space/time, in the vacuum of space, then any man made vacuum's will still contain space/time, which can be manipulated in some way, shape or form since that's exactly what the earth is doing and presumidly all other celestial bodies. So if space/time exists within the vacuum, and space/time can be manipulated by mass and torque, than it's safe to presume that it can be affected by other forms of energy. So this "SQUID" is being sent electromagnetic waves and being wiggled around super fast and we get sparks of some nature. Looks like they are causing a photonic spark caused by the friction imposed on the SQUID and space/time. They are afterall rubbing things together, mass and electromagnetic fields being rubbed against space/time in an enviroment with no natural insulation between the 2. That's my opinion on why these sparks appear to come from nowhere, they seem to not be incorperating all aspects involved.

Playing Devil's Advocate since 1978

"The only constant in the universe is change"
-Heraclitus of Ephesus 535 BC - 475 BC