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Comment by n' on September 14, 2012 at 11:48am

good read. thank you to all who participated.

Comment by morry secrest on February 20, 2012 at 12:10am

Just finished reading the article posted at the physics site shown on John Mead's post below. 

Thanks, John.

The Casimir Effect is closely related to distance, in that the attractive force becomes stronger as the distance becomes smaller.

This is due to the lower frequencies (of EM radiation) being eliminated (or forbidden) from the space between the two mirrors.

As the separation distance becomes smaller, the forbidden frequencies become progressively higher.

At some point, even the frequencies of visible light will become forbidden, and the space between the mirrors will go dark (to our perception, anyway).

The reverse would have a dark space created as two perfect mirrors are just beginning to separate; then progressively lower EM frequencies would appear as the mirrors move further apart.

This is very similar, in a way, to the very beginning of the Big Bang theory.  Several steps of creation must take place before light becomes visible (again, to our organs of perception).

I wonder if the Casimir Effect was in play at the time of the beginning of the Big Bang.

Any thoughts?

Moderator Comment by John on January 30, 2012 at 9:05pm

so, why should it have gotten a patent?

Comment by Hannes Frischat on January 30, 2012 at 8:12pm

Jaques Mahnich wrote: "Any thought on previous post "How to turn light from nothingness" ? Being able to generate light quanta from "nothingness" or quantum void is appealing as a track for similarities with traditions (occult)."

Since you ask for comments: Somebody I know quite well tried to get a patent on using the Casimir effect for generating electrical current. It was declined because "no perpetuum mobile can get a patent". This is not a made up story :-)

Moderator Comment by John on January 27, 2012 at 1:42pm

Hi!

sorry - late reply. I like the experiment.

(only caveat is the wording, which may suggest you get energy from nothing. Not going to happen. It is a "driven" squid and can pump energy into the system to "balance" the equation).

Validates another QM "win".

I usually only "grump" when the hype is wrong and/or misleading. It is really weird when scientists over-hype,  seemingly to promote themselves and/or their research. It seems to confuse things. It can actually hurt our cause as theosophists. We can be pretty quick to jump on things (especially science) to validate our esotericsm/gnosticism/mysticism/theosophemes etc...   we need good science to work with.

Comment by Jacques Mahnich on January 26, 2012 at 7:56am

Thank you John, for these additional set of useful information.
Any thought on previous post "How to turn light from nothingness" ? Being able to generate light quanta from "nothingness" or quantum void is appealing as a track for similarities with traditions (occult).

Moderator Comment by John on January 14, 2012 at 7:42am

I forgot to add that when you watch the video, the red pieces are longer wavelength, and the blue are the shorter wavelengths. these move at different speeds (in different cable types). That is where the traffic on the highway analogy comes from. A bunch of cars slow down, the chicken crosses the road, and then they accelerate back up to regain their prior position.

They use green because it is between red and blue. Hence - you can see the wavelength and speeds change in the video. if you watch it carefully it shows the precise actions going on. i.e. watch the colors at the beam sections when the gap forms and then closes.

Moderator Comment by John on January 14, 2012 at 6:45am

The hole in time is a media-hype. What they have done is create a small gap in a laser beam. Space and time are alive and well in that gap. normal items can go through the gap and are not at all affected and also the beam is not affected. The hole is normal space time. They did this with roughly 1.5 to 1.6μm light (not in visible range).

The reports (some flying around) talk about how if it was a much bigger machine the gap could be bigger. They estimate that by how much more optical cable they will need. Cable length is used to delay signals all the time. The special cable they used had an enhanced difference in velocity of light between 1.57 and 1.56 μm.

as an aside: In general - for delaying a signal across a wire - a rough estimate is usually 1 ns = 30cm. (if someone asks how big a nanosecond is - you say roughly a foot, or 30cm etc.)

To make it work on the entire visible spectrum would be impressive.

best source is on Cornell University (Ithaca NY)

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Jan12/timecloak.html

Comment by Jacques Mahnich on January 11, 2012 at 4:29pm

Einstein's theories of relativity suggest that gravity can cause time to slow down. Now scientists have demonstrated a way to stop time altogether - or at least, to give the appearance of time stopping by bending light to create a hole in time. The new research builds on recent demonstrations of "invisibility cloaks" that can make objects seem to disappear by bending waves of visible light.

See more on National Geographic

 

Comment by Jacques Mahnich on December 22, 2011 at 7:08am

An interesting finding : Dynamical Casimir Effect, named a top-discovery of 2011.

"How to turn light from nothingness" or the observation of the dynamical Casimir Effect.

Casimir Effect, called the "Physical Manifestations of Zero-Point Energy" was, up-to-now, observed as a quantum force of attraction between two parallel uncharged conducting plates. It has been scientifically demonstrated as  an interaction between material bodies due to quantum fluctuations emerging from the "void" of the universe.

Hendrik Brugt Gerhard Casimir, following a comment by Bohr in 1947, to the effect that the van der Waals force must have something to do with zero-point energy, developed a new derivation of the force between an atom and a plate, and between two atoms, based on quantum fluctuations. It was aired during a meeting in Paris in April 1948. Since, many experiments have confirmed and validated the hypothesis.

This may be an interesting track from the fact that Casimir introduced here a new type of interaction which is not action at a distance between molecules but local action of fields. Obviously, the complexity of the theory behind this phenomenon is way too immense to be discussed here, but the idea that some forces or some particles of light can be generated from voidness is an exciting feature.

Space is alive !

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