As a PhD physicist, this page makes no sense to me whatsoever. The zero-point energy page covers the relevant physical topics, while this page is a rambling uncited diatribe. The only coherent section is the duplication of the zero-point energy article. Please remove this ASAP. Stop Wikipedia from becoming an intellectual wasteland. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.152.153.58 ( talk) 01:36, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
I've noticed a large amount of good physics on the ZPF has been tainted by peripheral ideas that are are still not on solid ground. For instance, it is known classically that at zero degrees Kelvin the spin state of all matter should radiate its energy away and collapse inward extremely fast. Yet it does not do so. We also know that the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle predicts a certain minimum energy of a quantum oscillator in space. So we know this field must exist and is simply refered to as the zero point field and it is a solid concept.
What is more controversial is the amount of energy that is contained in the zpf. From my understanding of most of the literature, physics continues to mix apples and oranges on this issue. For instance, the particle adherents suggest the energy accumulates for each frequency of oscillation, one in each of the 3 dimensions, up to the Plank level. And they rationalize this amount by saying there are invisible "virtual" particles flitting in and out of existance that we can't see.
The problem is that physics is mixing fields and particles in their construction of the zpf. A classical field in physics is the gravitational field. We know that as matter heats up or accelerates the gravitational field increases. But what is a gravitational field? It's probably just a electromagnetic energy gradient in the zpf field. Sort of like a low pressure area surrounding a tornado. That tornado is the spin of a particle. If the universe is to retain causality the total energy of the universe must always be finite and conserved. Is is not possible that when you accelerate or heat up a particle you are just increasing the "magnitude" of it spin angular momentum vector while simultaneously drawing in energy from the surrounding field?
There's no need to project astronomical energy levels to the zpf or to expect that energy to be able to be tapped in its pure form. It's no different than suddenly expecting to be able to tap ambient air pressure from one direction only. It doesn't happen.
Why aren't there pages on both Zero Point Energy [ZPE] and Zero Point Field [ZPF] in WP? Both of these topics are new to me; hence, I am wondering why I have to go "outside" of WP to find information on ZPF? Such as the following:
Can someone explain this to me?-- Sadi Carnot 01:27, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Pls provide some rationale for not longer redirecting this lemma.
IMHO we may have too many, not too few articles on this topic, adding to the confusion:
Also, "Zero-point field", isn't much is used in physics. More than half of Google scholar hits go the specific theory of Haisch et al and should be discussed in a more specific article. Pjacobi 18:45, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Hi, can you pitch in a bit on this article I started. Thanks: -- Sadi Carnot 17:45, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
The article is now up to 20 references. I most likely won’t be contacting your user page for help in the future. -- Sadi Carnot 15:46, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
which was and most likely should be again a redirect to vacuum state. Now it has become a strange mixture of history of QM, Haisch-cruft and worse. See talk page. -- Pjacobi 16:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't know how it comes to be that Bernard Haisch has come to be regarded with such venom. While stochastic electrodynamics may not be correct, for instance SE predicts the total energy of universe comeing out around 10^100 more than cosmological constant predicts, he at least is thinking out of the box. I personally think the biggest failing is to not include the lower radiation pressure surrounding particles we see as gravity into those calculations, which would change everything.
What he says otherwise connecting Zitterbewegung and Inertia makes perfect sense. Why is it that modern physics is accepting of the non-causality of virtual particles existing, colliding, and non-existing over and over again. It's just an excuse for results not adding up - bad physics. It makes much more sense to expect a "primordial" field, the ZPF, that shows up in Zitterbewegung action of electrons. Instead of the non-causality of virtual particles, one has instead infinitesmal lines of force that have existed forever causing the Zitterbewegung action, but which are "organized" though the process of acceleration into the various fields. While being imperfect in factual results, I consider him a hero for opening up the discussion into new ideas that have great potential, instead of the same old, same old that led to the monster we call string theory. I personally think there wouldn't be so much venom directed his way if some of his ideas, such as the ones I just mentioned, didn't actually make sense and didn't directly threaten the status quo.
The other stuff, such as UFOs, extracting energy from the vacuum, can all be considered personal opinions. But there is no reason to attack "everything" he's come up with because one disagrees with other parts. That's more of a visceral reaction and not logical or useful.
For being severely misleading and the much less used term, I've made Zero-point field and redirect to this article (again). Compare the last version before redirecting: Zero-point field. Stuff like According to recent 2005 theoretical considerations, the source free vacuum electromagnetic field can be considered to be a composite of a neutrino and an anti neutrino IMHO speaks for itself. The opinions of Bernard Haisch should be presented at Stochastic electrodynamics as they are considered fringe. Pjacobi 10:38, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
The article states:
This sentence is strange/misleading. 1) why single out the electromagnetic field? There is a vacuum state for all fields not just this one.
2) The assertion that its "merely a curious outcome" blatently contradicts the sentence right before it (which talks about the Casimir effect), and completely ignores things like Lamb shift, which was awarded with a Nobel prize, I believe.
linas 13:41, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
The article states:
Two problemms:
1)True but insane/misleading. The vacuum state has nothing to do with thermal effects.
2) Again, a focus on the electromagnetic field; the phenomenon holds for all fields.
Temperature has nothing to do with it. The Casimir effect is now regularly seen in nanotech devices, and is sometimes taken account of during the engineering phase.
Half-true, half-bullshit. The article on the Casimir effect gives a better derivation. The actual effect depends not only on the bulk contribution, but also on the boundary conditions.
This is utter and total crack-smoking insanity. linas 13:53, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
So far, every sentence in this article has contained either minor or major errors, or has been nonsense. The history section is particularly almost completely irrelevent to the concept. It attempts to recap half a century of development of QM and QFT into a focus on black body radiation and the quantization of the simple harmonic oscillator. This whole section should be deleted.
Its conclusion is insane:
A long list of notable cranks. I too, had the mis-pleasure of dining with someone who was going put the dirty petroleum industry out of business by mining clean energy from the zero-point field. That does not mean my dinner guest was not a crank, despite his illustrious publications on this topic. linas 14:02, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I have a proposal. Given that this article got just about every aspect of the actual physics wrong, and given that actual physicists call it the "vacuum state" and not "zero-point energy", I suggest turning this article into an article about the pseudoscience only. This would allow more or less unlimited discussion of the cranky bits withlittle or no arguments. Would that work? linas 14:10, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be good to move the talk page back to Talk:Zero-point field, since its appearence here, at Talk:Vacuum state, is disconcerting and somewhat confusing. Is there an admin watching this, who could do this? linas 16:29, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I’m short on time presently, but quickly I see that the solution linas and Pjacobi have decided on is to chuck the term completely into the pseudoscience category and to strip off any respectable references I may have used. This obviously violates WP:NPOV. I understand, I don’t like articles that confound pseudoscience and science together; and I really could care less about this term, but quoting from Gribbin’s Encyclopedia of Particle Physics (subheading zero-point energy) “in quantum field theory, the lowest energy state of a field, i.e. its ground state, is non-zero, giving the quantum vacuum a complex structure.” Hence, at this point, I would rather scrap the whole article for this one sentence, with this one reference. Down the road, I will likely have more time to argue. Again, I really could care less if there actually is such a field or not; at this point there is too much derogatory commentary invariable directed at me as though I were up to some kind of conspiracy. I’ll have to come back to this irritating situation when my tanks are full. -- Sadi Carnot 04:02, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
Judging by the trend of logic the two of you are using against my efforts, namely (1) ridicule each reference then (2) delete it, I am going to assume that neither of you have the capacity to write a decent one page article on zero point field from a rigorous scientific point of view. I will also suggest that this article be split into zero-point field (science) and zero-point field (pseudoscience). This will be similar to the articles Law of attraction and laws of attraction, which both have their origins in Plato’s first law of affinity, i.e. “likes attract unto likes”, but have since veered off into their own topics, namely “ self help” (the first variation) and “ thermodynamics and quantum chemistry” (the second variation). I’ll let this sit for a while to see if either of you can prove me wrong by writing up a decent article: zero-point field (science). -- Sadi Carnot 17:22, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
The previous undoing of the latest edited version is unwarranted and against the policy of Wikipedia. If an edit is to be undone without comment it must be obvious and proven that the previous edit was vandalism of the subject in question. There is no reason to undo the previous edit I made because it has never been proven that there is a corresponding zero point field for the weak and strong force, either experimentally or that it is required mathematically. If you don't believe it then just do some of the latest cutting edge research on what quantum entanglement of particles actually is. You will find that the strong and weak force are just examples of quantum entanglement of particles and that the decay of particles in th weak force is just an imperfect instance of entanglement. Quantum Entanglement has also been shown to not require anything besides an electromagnetic zero-point field to come into existance. Until you have educated yourself on this subject you have no right to undo this past edit without comment. 75.6.239.2 ( talk) 20:26, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
It's interesting how easy it is for people to jump to conclusions about things. In the effort to put themselves in line with the herd of sheep called society "most" theortical physicists will delude themselves into believing certain things are impossible and that other things deemed impossible are not possible because it has been stated by authority figures in the field. For instance it has been an enduring position of the scientific community that conservation of energy does not pertain at the quantum level. Scientists have acted like contortionists to create theories of virtual particles, quantum "fluctuations" and delayed choice so as not to have to admit this is what they really believe. But everything they have said and speculated about in the last 50 years says they don't take conservation of energy at the quantum level seriously. Every time the flag of "conservation of energy" is run up the flafpole they all salute it because they just can't bring themselves to own up to it. But they are like little kids with crumbs on their faces telling their mom they don't know what happened to the chocolate cake she just baked.
But once you take conservation of energy and conservation of information (which is the same thing) seriously at the quantum level all sorts of strange and even mythical effects start to emerge. If information never is really lost do you really want to treat other people in a way you would not want to be treated? Even the idea of "fairness" suddenly takes on a richer meaning. Things just might come back to bite you if you don't act right. An idea we could all use a little bit more of. 75.7.16.106 ( talk) 20:55, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
I changed my own edit because I realized time was intimately involved with the flow of information locally. At zero degrees kelvin the flow of energy and information stops. This seems to indicate that time itself for any space or body that could actually be brought to that temperature, would stop. So time is a redundant definition in that context. Time seems to be a measure of the "ticking over" of information locally. It may also be the reason that time slows down for any object accelerated to near the speed of light. If gravity is a measure of the zpf energy density surrounding a massive object or particle, then near the speed of light the zpf energy density around that object would be so "thinned out" that the energy and information exchange between the zpf and the object would slow down - time slows down. 75.7.18.188 ( talk) 00:57, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I added a new section about the Planck length and how it relates to the upper limit for zpf density. I tried to write in the most elegant way I could so the reader could follow the logic easily without being asked to make leaps of faith. Because I don't have citations for this section I felt this was neccessary. If anybody has a citation that fits with this section it would be appreciated. This isn't to say the logic I put into the section requires it. Anybody with a brain can follow it and I left the final judgement on its efficacy to be left to the future. So please don't take this comment as my admission that it "requires" a citation.
It would just be nice, that's all. 75.6.249.219 ( talk) 01:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I changed the overall emphasis zpf theory summary from one of being derived purely from statistical probability to one that is larger than merely a result of statistical analysis. This larger idea also encompasses changes resulting from quantum uncertainty. The only problem with this change is that it effects a footnote. With the change it makes it look like a disagreement with the authors in the footnote. However, I have reason to believe those authors probably also have changed their opinion from what that footnote references. So, rather than having the article look like it was trying to negate the opinion of those specific individuals I would like to remove the footnote. The previous concensus view really wasn't just the view held by those individuals but was widespread in the scientific community.
So if someone wants to reinstate the footnote for some other work by those individuals I would be appreciative. I'm trying to avoid stepping on toes while still being respectful of the subject. If no one comes up with one I will try to find something to footnote them them that is consistant with the article, but it might appear somewhere else in the article. No promises though, so I would appreciate if those individuals, or someone representing them, would make the needed insertion. 75.6.240.73 ( talk) 01:18, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
Started new section and will finish it up in the next few days. I need to add citations for Puthoff and Haisch on inertial forces and zitterbewegung action and on Haisch alone for plane waves created dring acceleration. I'll do implication for this tunneling action and how it is a different way of looking at both quantum entanglement and torsion, but is basically the same thing. Also need to add 1935 EPR reference. This is just a start... 75.6.253.154 ( talk) 05:40, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
I read the comment that its too long. I hate to say it but I think the section I added may have been too much. So I will delete it. There's a lot of information that goes with it and the section doesn't really do it justice. Plus it comes close to duplicating things that came earlier in the article. To some people I'm sure it comes just too close to effects they typically associate with pseudoscience. I don't think people are ready to accept that and it deserves its own separate subject anyway that goes into much more detail. So I'm deleting the section. However I will delete the comment that the article is too long with it. If there is still a problem with the article's length please make any response here first. Then we can work on the issue together rather than having me try to read minds. 75.7.19.150 ( talk) 08:39, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
It is a fact that Albert Einstein's equation in General Relativity for the geometrodynamics of space is one of the most beautiful equations in physics. Unfortunately, its beauty has resulted in a fixation in the West on the mathematics of geometry, including the geometry of hyper-dimensional space. This focus has resulted in Western mainstream physics ignoring the need for a mathematical definition that connects the classical General Relativity 4-dimensional and Kaluza-Klein 5-dimensional theories of the geometry of space with new quantum mechanical derived ideas that will better correlate with them. Until an explicit mathematical equation is robustly proven to link these two disparate interpretations of physics the first law of thermodynamics for our universe appears to be conceptually violated.
This writing style is not what someone would expect from an encyclopaedia. Though I couldn't find any rule on writing style, I believe that an objective-unemotional style would be more appropriate. -- 77.56.90.38 ( talk) 08:37, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't like this. It seems to be advocating various nonstandard physical theories such as Andrei Sakharov's alternative gravitation theories. As it seems to be slanted toward these theories (as opposed to not having a slant at all), it feels as though it runs afoul of Wikipedia's Neutrality policies (NPOV). Does anyone here agree, and does anyone want to do something about it? It also suggests that zpf somehow is incompatible with the law of conservation of energy and that this presents a significant problem in physics. Yet I've never heard of an incompatibility between zpf and conservation of energy -- this sounds like some sort of "Original Research" that is not appropriate for WP. Anyone really, really knowledgeable about physics in all the relevant areas want to examine the claims made on the page? They seem a little suspect. I also noted cites of Harold Puthoff, whom I consider suspicious as he seems to be "convinced" that Uri Geller's "psychic" claims are valid -- yet from what I've seen, Geller has been pretty thoroughly debunked and exposed as an outright fraud and con man, though this of course is no substitute for a logical exam of his claims (though that itself is beyond the scope of WP -- WP is concerned with reporting on things, not investigating their validity or lack thereof.). It just adds to the growing overall atmosphere of suspectness/dubiousness of the things expounded about on this page. I also find some statements on here a little odd. E.g. "In recent years, it has been suggested that the electromagnetic zero-point field is not merely an artifact of quantum mechanics, but a real entity with major implications for gravity, astrophysics and technology." However I'm not sure what physicists would call the zpf "merely" an "artifact" as though it were unimportant. I could be wrong on this, of course. And "One cannot invoke another world or universe to justify unjustifiable fluctuations just when it is useful to solve an inconvenient problem, as in the many worlds philosophy of quantum mechanics." This seems like a strange and peculiar slam at Hugh Everett's many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory -- I have not heard of MWI being used as a "cop out" to push away inconvenient problems. Again I could be wrong, but this just doesn't seem good.
A great deal of information has been put into this article, making it highly complex and difficult to figure out what should be kept and rejected (there might be good stuff buried in there after all), and I think someone with both good expertise in physics and good neutrality should go over this and get it up to spec with Wikipedia policy. mike4ty4 ( talk) 08:43, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
I think its worthwhile to be reasonable and courteous about disputes. However the criticism about neutrality seems to be coming from someone who really isn't conversant with big issues in physics, and perhaps not even with physics in general. I have no way of knowing because he hasn't responded to my rebuttal of his claim that the article is biased. A timetable seems reasonable for that party or anyone else to respond to my rebuttal of the issues that were raised. Does a week seem long enough? I propose that if good arguments are not put forward to counter my rebuttal in the section above then I will remove the neutrality banner in a week.
The issues involved seem pretty straight forward to me - are all sides of a subject required to be viewed equally on all subjects even when not all viewpoints are equally valid by logic and evidence. This is a central issue for the dumbing down of culture today. I'm not saying highly technical arguments for a thesis invalidity or validity have high merit, but I am saying easily understandable arguments should be given a good airing. That's what I've tried to present in this article. I've put a lot of effort into showing that the issues involved with the status quo version of the zpf are not complicated and that a different vision of it are easily understood physically. Eric Habegger 75.7.11.140 ( talk) 18:52, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
Just look at this talk page. This article has been an embarrassment since inception, a WP:COATRACK for fringe-cruft and amalgamation of topics not found in any single reliable source metioned. One particular unregistered user has been using it for his original research and personal essay space, violating synthesis. The separate topics are covered in other articles. I have redirected to Vacuum state, as that article mentions the zero point field in its first paragraph as a synonym, but if someone wants to redirect it to Zero-point energy, that would be fine as well. Tim Shuba ( talk) 12:58, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
wow, and then the whole heated argument just kind of peters out! like, would the last person leaving the room please turn the lights out kind of thing. Richard8081 ( talk) 03:59, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
As a PhD physicist, this page makes no sense to me whatsoever. The zero-point energy page covers the relevant physical topics, while this page is a rambling uncited diatribe. The only coherent section is the duplication of the zero-point energy article. Please remove this ASAP. Stop Wikipedia from becoming an intellectual wasteland. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.152.153.58 ( talk) 01:36, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
I've noticed a large amount of good physics on the ZPF has been tainted by peripheral ideas that are are still not on solid ground. For instance, it is known classically that at zero degrees Kelvin the spin state of all matter should radiate its energy away and collapse inward extremely fast. Yet it does not do so. We also know that the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle predicts a certain minimum energy of a quantum oscillator in space. So we know this field must exist and is simply refered to as the zero point field and it is a solid concept.
What is more controversial is the amount of energy that is contained in the zpf. From my understanding of most of the literature, physics continues to mix apples and oranges on this issue. For instance, the particle adherents suggest the energy accumulates for each frequency of oscillation, one in each of the 3 dimensions, up to the Plank level. And they rationalize this amount by saying there are invisible "virtual" particles flitting in and out of existance that we can't see.
The problem is that physics is mixing fields and particles in their construction of the zpf. A classical field in physics is the gravitational field. We know that as matter heats up or accelerates the gravitational field increases. But what is a gravitational field? It's probably just a electromagnetic energy gradient in the zpf field. Sort of like a low pressure area surrounding a tornado. That tornado is the spin of a particle. If the universe is to retain causality the total energy of the universe must always be finite and conserved. Is is not possible that when you accelerate or heat up a particle you are just increasing the "magnitude" of it spin angular momentum vector while simultaneously drawing in energy from the surrounding field?
There's no need to project astronomical energy levels to the zpf or to expect that energy to be able to be tapped in its pure form. It's no different than suddenly expecting to be able to tap ambient air pressure from one direction only. It doesn't happen.
Why aren't there pages on both Zero Point Energy [ZPE] and Zero Point Field [ZPF] in WP? Both of these topics are new to me; hence, I am wondering why I have to go "outside" of WP to find information on ZPF? Such as the following:
Can someone explain this to me?-- Sadi Carnot 01:27, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Pls provide some rationale for not longer redirecting this lemma.
IMHO we may have too many, not too few articles on this topic, adding to the confusion:
Also, "Zero-point field", isn't much is used in physics. More than half of Google scholar hits go the specific theory of Haisch et al and should be discussed in a more specific article. Pjacobi 18:45, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Hi, can you pitch in a bit on this article I started. Thanks: -- Sadi Carnot 17:45, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
The article is now up to 20 references. I most likely won’t be contacting your user page for help in the future. -- Sadi Carnot 15:46, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
which was and most likely should be again a redirect to vacuum state. Now it has become a strange mixture of history of QM, Haisch-cruft and worse. See talk page. -- Pjacobi 16:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't know how it comes to be that Bernard Haisch has come to be regarded with such venom. While stochastic electrodynamics may not be correct, for instance SE predicts the total energy of universe comeing out around 10^100 more than cosmological constant predicts, he at least is thinking out of the box. I personally think the biggest failing is to not include the lower radiation pressure surrounding particles we see as gravity into those calculations, which would change everything.
What he says otherwise connecting Zitterbewegung and Inertia makes perfect sense. Why is it that modern physics is accepting of the non-causality of virtual particles existing, colliding, and non-existing over and over again. It's just an excuse for results not adding up - bad physics. It makes much more sense to expect a "primordial" field, the ZPF, that shows up in Zitterbewegung action of electrons. Instead of the non-causality of virtual particles, one has instead infinitesmal lines of force that have existed forever causing the Zitterbewegung action, but which are "organized" though the process of acceleration into the various fields. While being imperfect in factual results, I consider him a hero for opening up the discussion into new ideas that have great potential, instead of the same old, same old that led to the monster we call string theory. I personally think there wouldn't be so much venom directed his way if some of his ideas, such as the ones I just mentioned, didn't actually make sense and didn't directly threaten the status quo.
The other stuff, such as UFOs, extracting energy from the vacuum, can all be considered personal opinions. But there is no reason to attack "everything" he's come up with because one disagrees with other parts. That's more of a visceral reaction and not logical or useful.
For being severely misleading and the much less used term, I've made Zero-point field and redirect to this article (again). Compare the last version before redirecting: Zero-point field. Stuff like According to recent 2005 theoretical considerations, the source free vacuum electromagnetic field can be considered to be a composite of a neutrino and an anti neutrino IMHO speaks for itself. The opinions of Bernard Haisch should be presented at Stochastic electrodynamics as they are considered fringe. Pjacobi 10:38, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
The article states:
This sentence is strange/misleading. 1) why single out the electromagnetic field? There is a vacuum state for all fields not just this one.
2) The assertion that its "merely a curious outcome" blatently contradicts the sentence right before it (which talks about the Casimir effect), and completely ignores things like Lamb shift, which was awarded with a Nobel prize, I believe.
linas 13:41, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
The article states:
Two problemms:
1)True but insane/misleading. The vacuum state has nothing to do with thermal effects.
2) Again, a focus on the electromagnetic field; the phenomenon holds for all fields.
Temperature has nothing to do with it. The Casimir effect is now regularly seen in nanotech devices, and is sometimes taken account of during the engineering phase.
Half-true, half-bullshit. The article on the Casimir effect gives a better derivation. The actual effect depends not only on the bulk contribution, but also on the boundary conditions.
This is utter and total crack-smoking insanity. linas 13:53, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
So far, every sentence in this article has contained either minor or major errors, or has been nonsense. The history section is particularly almost completely irrelevent to the concept. It attempts to recap half a century of development of QM and QFT into a focus on black body radiation and the quantization of the simple harmonic oscillator. This whole section should be deleted.
Its conclusion is insane:
A long list of notable cranks. I too, had the mis-pleasure of dining with someone who was going put the dirty petroleum industry out of business by mining clean energy from the zero-point field. That does not mean my dinner guest was not a crank, despite his illustrious publications on this topic. linas 14:02, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I have a proposal. Given that this article got just about every aspect of the actual physics wrong, and given that actual physicists call it the "vacuum state" and not "zero-point energy", I suggest turning this article into an article about the pseudoscience only. This would allow more or less unlimited discussion of the cranky bits withlittle or no arguments. Would that work? linas 14:10, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be good to move the talk page back to Talk:Zero-point field, since its appearence here, at Talk:Vacuum state, is disconcerting and somewhat confusing. Is there an admin watching this, who could do this? linas 16:29, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I’m short on time presently, but quickly I see that the solution linas and Pjacobi have decided on is to chuck the term completely into the pseudoscience category and to strip off any respectable references I may have used. This obviously violates WP:NPOV. I understand, I don’t like articles that confound pseudoscience and science together; and I really could care less about this term, but quoting from Gribbin’s Encyclopedia of Particle Physics (subheading zero-point energy) “in quantum field theory, the lowest energy state of a field, i.e. its ground state, is non-zero, giving the quantum vacuum a complex structure.” Hence, at this point, I would rather scrap the whole article for this one sentence, with this one reference. Down the road, I will likely have more time to argue. Again, I really could care less if there actually is such a field or not; at this point there is too much derogatory commentary invariable directed at me as though I were up to some kind of conspiracy. I’ll have to come back to this irritating situation when my tanks are full. -- Sadi Carnot 04:02, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
Judging by the trend of logic the two of you are using against my efforts, namely (1) ridicule each reference then (2) delete it, I am going to assume that neither of you have the capacity to write a decent one page article on zero point field from a rigorous scientific point of view. I will also suggest that this article be split into zero-point field (science) and zero-point field (pseudoscience). This will be similar to the articles Law of attraction and laws of attraction, which both have their origins in Plato’s first law of affinity, i.e. “likes attract unto likes”, but have since veered off into their own topics, namely “ self help” (the first variation) and “ thermodynamics and quantum chemistry” (the second variation). I’ll let this sit for a while to see if either of you can prove me wrong by writing up a decent article: zero-point field (science). -- Sadi Carnot 17:22, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
The previous undoing of the latest edited version is unwarranted and against the policy of Wikipedia. If an edit is to be undone without comment it must be obvious and proven that the previous edit was vandalism of the subject in question. There is no reason to undo the previous edit I made because it has never been proven that there is a corresponding zero point field for the weak and strong force, either experimentally or that it is required mathematically. If you don't believe it then just do some of the latest cutting edge research on what quantum entanglement of particles actually is. You will find that the strong and weak force are just examples of quantum entanglement of particles and that the decay of particles in th weak force is just an imperfect instance of entanglement. Quantum Entanglement has also been shown to not require anything besides an electromagnetic zero-point field to come into existance. Until you have educated yourself on this subject you have no right to undo this past edit without comment. 75.6.239.2 ( talk) 20:26, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
It's interesting how easy it is for people to jump to conclusions about things. In the effort to put themselves in line with the herd of sheep called society "most" theortical physicists will delude themselves into believing certain things are impossible and that other things deemed impossible are not possible because it has been stated by authority figures in the field. For instance it has been an enduring position of the scientific community that conservation of energy does not pertain at the quantum level. Scientists have acted like contortionists to create theories of virtual particles, quantum "fluctuations" and delayed choice so as not to have to admit this is what they really believe. But everything they have said and speculated about in the last 50 years says they don't take conservation of energy at the quantum level seriously. Every time the flag of "conservation of energy" is run up the flafpole they all salute it because they just can't bring themselves to own up to it. But they are like little kids with crumbs on their faces telling their mom they don't know what happened to the chocolate cake she just baked.
But once you take conservation of energy and conservation of information (which is the same thing) seriously at the quantum level all sorts of strange and even mythical effects start to emerge. If information never is really lost do you really want to treat other people in a way you would not want to be treated? Even the idea of "fairness" suddenly takes on a richer meaning. Things just might come back to bite you if you don't act right. An idea we could all use a little bit more of. 75.7.16.106 ( talk) 20:55, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
I changed my own edit because I realized time was intimately involved with the flow of information locally. At zero degrees kelvin the flow of energy and information stops. This seems to indicate that time itself for any space or body that could actually be brought to that temperature, would stop. So time is a redundant definition in that context. Time seems to be a measure of the "ticking over" of information locally. It may also be the reason that time slows down for any object accelerated to near the speed of light. If gravity is a measure of the zpf energy density surrounding a massive object or particle, then near the speed of light the zpf energy density around that object would be so "thinned out" that the energy and information exchange between the zpf and the object would slow down - time slows down. 75.7.18.188 ( talk) 00:57, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I added a new section about the Planck length and how it relates to the upper limit for zpf density. I tried to write in the most elegant way I could so the reader could follow the logic easily without being asked to make leaps of faith. Because I don't have citations for this section I felt this was neccessary. If anybody has a citation that fits with this section it would be appreciated. This isn't to say the logic I put into the section requires it. Anybody with a brain can follow it and I left the final judgement on its efficacy to be left to the future. So please don't take this comment as my admission that it "requires" a citation.
It would just be nice, that's all. 75.6.249.219 ( talk) 01:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I changed the overall emphasis zpf theory summary from one of being derived purely from statistical probability to one that is larger than merely a result of statistical analysis. This larger idea also encompasses changes resulting from quantum uncertainty. The only problem with this change is that it effects a footnote. With the change it makes it look like a disagreement with the authors in the footnote. However, I have reason to believe those authors probably also have changed their opinion from what that footnote references. So, rather than having the article look like it was trying to negate the opinion of those specific individuals I would like to remove the footnote. The previous concensus view really wasn't just the view held by those individuals but was widespread in the scientific community.
So if someone wants to reinstate the footnote for some other work by those individuals I would be appreciative. I'm trying to avoid stepping on toes while still being respectful of the subject. If no one comes up with one I will try to find something to footnote them them that is consistant with the article, but it might appear somewhere else in the article. No promises though, so I would appreciate if those individuals, or someone representing them, would make the needed insertion. 75.6.240.73 ( talk) 01:18, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
Started new section and will finish it up in the next few days. I need to add citations for Puthoff and Haisch on inertial forces and zitterbewegung action and on Haisch alone for plane waves created dring acceleration. I'll do implication for this tunneling action and how it is a different way of looking at both quantum entanglement and torsion, but is basically the same thing. Also need to add 1935 EPR reference. This is just a start... 75.6.253.154 ( talk) 05:40, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
I read the comment that its too long. I hate to say it but I think the section I added may have been too much. So I will delete it. There's a lot of information that goes with it and the section doesn't really do it justice. Plus it comes close to duplicating things that came earlier in the article. To some people I'm sure it comes just too close to effects they typically associate with pseudoscience. I don't think people are ready to accept that and it deserves its own separate subject anyway that goes into much more detail. So I'm deleting the section. However I will delete the comment that the article is too long with it. If there is still a problem with the article's length please make any response here first. Then we can work on the issue together rather than having me try to read minds. 75.7.19.150 ( talk) 08:39, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
It is a fact that Albert Einstein's equation in General Relativity for the geometrodynamics of space is one of the most beautiful equations in physics. Unfortunately, its beauty has resulted in a fixation in the West on the mathematics of geometry, including the geometry of hyper-dimensional space. This focus has resulted in Western mainstream physics ignoring the need for a mathematical definition that connects the classical General Relativity 4-dimensional and Kaluza-Klein 5-dimensional theories of the geometry of space with new quantum mechanical derived ideas that will better correlate with them. Until an explicit mathematical equation is robustly proven to link these two disparate interpretations of physics the first law of thermodynamics for our universe appears to be conceptually violated.
This writing style is not what someone would expect from an encyclopaedia. Though I couldn't find any rule on writing style, I believe that an objective-unemotional style would be more appropriate. -- 77.56.90.38 ( talk) 08:37, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't like this. It seems to be advocating various nonstandard physical theories such as Andrei Sakharov's alternative gravitation theories. As it seems to be slanted toward these theories (as opposed to not having a slant at all), it feels as though it runs afoul of Wikipedia's Neutrality policies (NPOV). Does anyone here agree, and does anyone want to do something about it? It also suggests that zpf somehow is incompatible with the law of conservation of energy and that this presents a significant problem in physics. Yet I've never heard of an incompatibility between zpf and conservation of energy -- this sounds like some sort of "Original Research" that is not appropriate for WP. Anyone really, really knowledgeable about physics in all the relevant areas want to examine the claims made on the page? They seem a little suspect. I also noted cites of Harold Puthoff, whom I consider suspicious as he seems to be "convinced" that Uri Geller's "psychic" claims are valid -- yet from what I've seen, Geller has been pretty thoroughly debunked and exposed as an outright fraud and con man, though this of course is no substitute for a logical exam of his claims (though that itself is beyond the scope of WP -- WP is concerned with reporting on things, not investigating their validity or lack thereof.). It just adds to the growing overall atmosphere of suspectness/dubiousness of the things expounded about on this page. I also find some statements on here a little odd. E.g. "In recent years, it has been suggested that the electromagnetic zero-point field is not merely an artifact of quantum mechanics, but a real entity with major implications for gravity, astrophysics and technology." However I'm not sure what physicists would call the zpf "merely" an "artifact" as though it were unimportant. I could be wrong on this, of course. And "One cannot invoke another world or universe to justify unjustifiable fluctuations just when it is useful to solve an inconvenient problem, as in the many worlds philosophy of quantum mechanics." This seems like a strange and peculiar slam at Hugh Everett's many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory -- I have not heard of MWI being used as a "cop out" to push away inconvenient problems. Again I could be wrong, but this just doesn't seem good.
A great deal of information has been put into this article, making it highly complex and difficult to figure out what should be kept and rejected (there might be good stuff buried in there after all), and I think someone with both good expertise in physics and good neutrality should go over this and get it up to spec with Wikipedia policy. mike4ty4 ( talk) 08:43, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
I think its worthwhile to be reasonable and courteous about disputes. However the criticism about neutrality seems to be coming from someone who really isn't conversant with big issues in physics, and perhaps not even with physics in general. I have no way of knowing because he hasn't responded to my rebuttal of his claim that the article is biased. A timetable seems reasonable for that party or anyone else to respond to my rebuttal of the issues that were raised. Does a week seem long enough? I propose that if good arguments are not put forward to counter my rebuttal in the section above then I will remove the neutrality banner in a week.
The issues involved seem pretty straight forward to me - are all sides of a subject required to be viewed equally on all subjects even when not all viewpoints are equally valid by logic and evidence. This is a central issue for the dumbing down of culture today. I'm not saying highly technical arguments for a thesis invalidity or validity have high merit, but I am saying easily understandable arguments should be given a good airing. That's what I've tried to present in this article. I've put a lot of effort into showing that the issues involved with the status quo version of the zpf are not complicated and that a different vision of it are easily understood physically. Eric Habegger 75.7.11.140 ( talk) 18:52, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
Just look at this talk page. This article has been an embarrassment since inception, a WP:COATRACK for fringe-cruft and amalgamation of topics not found in any single reliable source metioned. One particular unregistered user has been using it for his original research and personal essay space, violating synthesis. The separate topics are covered in other articles. I have redirected to Vacuum state, as that article mentions the zero point field in its first paragraph as a synonym, but if someone wants to redirect it to Zero-point energy, that would be fine as well. Tim Shuba ( talk) 12:58, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
wow, and then the whole heated argument just kind of peters out! like, would the last person leaving the room please turn the lights out kind of thing. Richard8081 ( talk) 03:59, 5 September 2012 (UTC)