Moving mirrors make light from nothing

Originally posted by Screwed
Yes but,

HOW CAN WE WEAPONIZE IT???

glue it to a rifle?

...

Those who are pooh poohing this as pointless, I think, are missing the point.

It's not that they're getting energy for free - as obviously they are not. BUT they are getting a physical thing out of nothing. It's that concept, I think that merits the experiment.

It's more about understanding the vacuum.

I also don't think that spinning mirrors alone produce light due to the energy applied. I'd think scientists would know more than to miss something as obvious as that.

As to if this is real? Well we'll see.. I have no idea how reputable Geoff Brumfiel, the author of the article, is.. but he appears legit.

Perhaps it was just a random particle collision that released some energy?

IRM

So, did we prove that God isn't light, or, did we just create (or at least get a glimpse of) God???
I tried to read the article yesterday, read some of it before I had to leave it for another day...
but, this was the question that it brought to my mind.....
that if this story is ligit, then well, God isn't light, but rather just another byproduct of God.....
or we just found God,
or we are God's since we created light from nothing.....

or......
this was fascinating...willl be thinking about it for awhile...

Wow interesting work. Just to clarify some mistaken points that have arisen in reply. The vacuum of space is not quite empty. It consists of a "foam" of photons constantly being created and re-joining. For the most part this is never ever noticed except when two plates are close enough together that the virtual photons on the outside is greater than the virtual photons on the inside due to the distance being shorter than the wavelengh of the virtual photons. : the casimir force.

There is also the case of the glowing black hole that when a photon particle pair are created near a black hole and one of the photons is captured by the black hole but the other one escapes then the black hole glows : Hawking radiation.

Up to now it was never known how the casimir force could ever be utilised and so if the experiment is as it seems to be then there is proof that the quantum vacuum can be tapped. The next step would be to ramp up the capture process if possible.

The quantum vacuum is the only reason why I would allow so called free energy devices some leeway just in case somebody has accidentally tapped into the quantum vacuum. Most devices are displays of the ignorance of physics with a battery behind the curtain!

reply to post by doctornamtab


Exactly what I was thinking. I'm guessing cameras...

reply to post by centurion1211


Nice find S&F!
One day we will figure out how to suck energy from thin air. This may be it, and in what a weird fashion...Spinning Mirrors?

Originally posted by badw0lf
I also don't think that spinning mirrors alone produce light due to the energy applied. I'd think scientists would know more than to miss something as obvious as that.

They aren't missing anything, so I don't know what you're talking about. Read their paper:

arxiv.org...

They clearly talk about all the power they are pumping into the device, they even have graphs of it. Not only that, but they are using superconductors. Unless you go out into deep space, where it's really cold, running superconductors on Earth takes a lot of energy to get them cold enough to superconduct. So the paper clearly doesn't hide the facts about how much energy is required to run this thing. It also points out that if they did it with real mirrors

it requires an input of mechanical power of 100 MW

Their version doesn't require that much energy, but they have only reduced the input energy required, not made it zero.

The question was raised in this thread if this experiment was somehow getting energy from nothing.

If people are interpreting the findings that way, then those people are misinterpreting the results because that's not what the scientists are claiming if you read the paper. Here is their claim:

we believe these results represent the first experimental observation of the dynamical Casimir effect

The Casimir effect was proven years ago, and now this is the dynamical Casimir effect. Neither one is making energy from nothing, but they both prove the vacuum isn't empty.

Originally posted by samlf3rd
Nice find S&F!
One day we will figure out how to suck energy from thin air. This may be it, and in what a weird fashion...Spinning Mirrors?

What do you mean "one day"?

The Atmos Clocks have been doing that for the better part of a century. My father has had a clock like that for 30 years.

And no, the spinning mirrors aren't sucking energy out of thin air like the atmos clock does.

Originally posted by boncho
reply to post by drakus

Basically they have just EXTRACTED ENERGY FROM VACUUM. Off course, asi this is an experiment the energy input was far greater than the output and it will probably be so for a long time.

 

You got that understanding from reading their paper?

Located Here

In conclusion, we observe broadband generation of microwave photons in an open trans-mission line with a periodically modulated boundary condition. The emitted photons exhibit two-mode squeezing correlations, which are characteristic of photons generated in correlated pairs. Taken together, we believe these results represent the rst experimental observation of the dynamical Casimir effect.

Yes I got that from reading the whole paper at arxiv.
why?

It's obvious that this is NOT some kind of overunity machine NO ONE SAID THAT, off course they are spending enormous amoounts of energy to shake the things at 5% of c the AMAZING thing is that, they could "capture" a photon coming into existence before it went virtual again.

I don't get what's your point, though...
Do you not "agree" with the methodologic aspect of the study, or our views on it's implications?

Cheers.
drakus

reply to post by drakus

Do you not "agree" with the methodologic aspect of the study, or our views on it's implications? Cheers. drakus

I don't agree with them posting (publishing) their paper online before it was peer reviewed. Unfortunately this happens sometimes, and it builds undue hype. A blurb with speculation here and their is nice from the science industry. But this exceeds that.

Originally posted by drakus
It's obvious that this is NOT some kind of overunity machine NO ONE SAID THAT

The implication of the OP is some kind of energy production device, did you miss that?

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by drakus
It's obvious that this is NOT some kind of overunity machine NO ONE SAID THAT

The implication of the OP is some kind of energy production device, did you miss that?

I meant to say that neither the researchers nor me were characterizing this experiment as a overunity device (as in a machine that produces more energy than it takes to put it to work).
I don't believe we will make engines out of tiny mirrors.....

I believe that, if the results are verified, this shows that it IS possible to bring particles "from virtual to real" (I know it's more complex than that) And that would mean extracting energy from vacuum.
I don't think I'm sensationalizing anything here...

And if it IS possible, then it is only a matter of time (of which it could require a lot) until we develop a device to efficiently "extract energy from vacuum".

Originally posted by boncho
reply to post by drakus

Do you not "agree" with the methodologic aspect of the study, or our views on it's implications? Cheers. drakus

 

I don't agree with them posting (publishing) their paper online before it was peer reviewed. Unfortunately this happens sometimes, and it builds undue hype. A blurb with speculation here and their is nice from the science industry. But this exceeds that.

Fair enough.
Drakus

Originally posted by angrydog

snip

even this would be true....we are the last ones who get a benefit from this..

they wont give us cheap and free energie as long they can sell the dirty but expensive energie

This is unfortunately quite close to the mark.

Originally posted by Artanis667
I think the energy used to move the mirrors 5% the speed of light would make the energy production moot. I certainly don't know the conversion but i'm thinking bad returns. This certainly does not seem to be an experiment on possible energy sources.

But now that they have demonstrated (maybe) the principle, it can be refined and made more efficient.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

snip

The group's analysis shows that the frequency of the photons was roughly half the frequency at which they wiggled the mirror — as was predicted by quantum theory.

that's the only clue we get about the energy they're getting out, but it's got to take a lot of energy to wiggle something at 5% of the speed of light.

snip

I don't think energy derivation is related to the frequency of the light emitted.

You can have a low power signal of a certain frequency that doesn't go very far or a higher power signal of the same frequency that has a greater range.

The frequency at which they vibrate the mirrors does correspond to energy input but only to a certain degree. There are a host of other components within the device (I would imagine) that contribute to the specifically tuned frequency at which the mirrors are vibrating.

I suspect that the halving of the frequency of the light in relation to the speed of the mirrors is related more to the photons spinning off of the mirror in an entangled state and the other half of the frequency response is in the entangled photon in a transposed waveform.

This is proof that some of you just don't read when provided with a link. The article explains the process.

They say by moving the mirror at almost the speed of light, it absorbs "virtual photons" and project them as real photons.

They say this kind of movement can't be achieved through everyday machinery either. So I don't think you can DIY at home

Originally posted by Mizzijr
This is proof that some of you just don't read when provided with a link. The article explains the process.

I noticed that too, there are usually some in every thread who don't read the link, and then embarrass themselves as a result.

They say this kind of movement can't be achieved through everyday machinery either. So I don't think you can DIY at home

You definitely can't do it with a regular mirror at home, without some help from your neighbors. They said the energy needed to do the experiment with regular mirror was 100MW, which is roughly the power used by 100,000 homes.

Now if you can get 99,999 really long extension cords to draw power from 99,999 of your neighbor's homes, and convince those 99,999 of your neighbors to turn all their lights and appliances off while you run your experiments, would that work?

Originally posted by jadedANDcynical
I don't think energy derivation is related to the frequency of the light emitted.

You would be thinking something that's incorrect my friend. Unless you want to elaborate on how I'm misinterpreting what you said here, this comment shows a most profound lack of understanding of basic physics. But since I'm also here to teach you in addition to admonishing against arguing about things which you know nothing about, here is the formula for the energy of a photon:

Energy of photon = (Frequency) x (Planck's constant)

Not only is the energy RELATED to the frequency, it is SOLELY dependent on frequency, the only other term is a constant.

www.antonine-education.co.uk...

The frequency of the light and the energy are related by a simple equation: E = hf

Originally posted by jadedANDcynical
The frequency at which they vibrate the mirrors does correspond to energy input but only to a certain degree. There are a host of other components within the device (I would imagine) that contribute to the specifically tuned frequency at which the mirrors are vibrating.

I'm glad you added "(I would imagine)", because that's where your statement is true, in your imagination.

I quoted directly from the paper, so if you have any disagreement with that quote, it would be with the authors of the paper, not with me. And if you read the paper, you won't have to imagine how many components are in the device, they have a picture of it.

This can help with transferring encrypted data if the two communicators have identical set ups. So of course it will come into helpful use.

I wonder if the scientists at MIT can help improve this effect...

The Perfect Mirror
phys.lsu.edu...

Their invention, which they are calling the "perfect mirror" combines the best features of the two previously known types of mirrors by reflecting light at any angle with virtually no loss of energy. It promises to have significant applications in many fields, including fiber optics, cellular telephones, energy conservation, medicine, spectroscopy and even, perhaps, cake decoration.

Maybe it can increase the energy output?

It seems like if we want to learn anything new lately, that we have to play by some pretty demanding rules. I'm glad someone knows what their doing.

Even though I think our tools are primitive in terms of how we gather data of the known Universe, we still have come a long way. We have reached the threshold were we know enough to keep our minds wanting to know more, getting closer to our own personal truths. You can analyze everything separately, but to get a better understanding you must learn how all systems affect the outcomes of others.

~Glu

reply to post by centurion1211


The magnetic field used to make their "mirror" (SQUID) wiggle would require energy itself, so I doubt this actually produces any more energy than they use to actually generate the affect,

The article even says they see no practical benefit, it is merely a demonstration of Quantum mechanics at work.

Still, interesting none the less..

Originally posted by doctornamtab
reply to post by centurion1211

 

I dont think its created out of nothing. Isnt light everywhere and the spinning just amplifies its mirrorification