Zero Point Evergy

[Ian]

Is Zero Point Energy a legitimate source of energy?

[geni]

unless you have a black hole handy no.

[wollery]

Umm, what do you mean by legitimate?

[Ian]

I meant that not everything on the internet is real and some people could make things up online and then post what they make up on websites.

[Rolfe]

Zero point energy was the alleged source of the energy used by that "water fuel cell" thing that was supposed to mean we'd all be able to run our cars on water, wasn't it? There was an admiral believed it would be ideal for battleships.

An actual working model was never present when any journalist showed up. The "inventor" ended up in jail, I think. So, no, not legitimate.

Rolfe.

[geni]

Originally posted by Rolfe
Zero point energy was the alleged source of the energy used by that "water fuel cell" thing that was supposed to mean we'd all be able to run our cars on water, wasn't it? There was an admiral believed it would be ideal for battleships.


There are varius means of zero point energy. In the simplest form it just means energy comeing from nothing. A lot of the current ideas would fall under the banned of vacume energy. The closest to a legit way of getting zero point energy that I know of involves hawking radition however in that case it is not really zero point.

[RussDill]

In QM, there is the heisenberg uncertainty principle. One of the consequences is that you can never have zero energy, no matter how empty and devoid you think you made a vacuum, there will still not only be radiation, but virtual particals.

Pseudoscientists and perpetual motion peddlers have grasped onto this, called it "zero point energy" and claimed the vacuum of space is their source of energy, which, if you read the equation for the heisernberg uncerntainty principle, is clearly BS.

[Ipecac]

Zero point energy worked very well for Syndrome when fighting the Incredibles. Stopped them in their tracks every time.

Oh, wait. That was a movie. A GREAT movie, but still a movie.

[Ian]

Maybe someone in the FUTURE could figure out a way to make mini primordial black holes artificially and generate Hawking Radiation that way and then use the energy from that to have as a power source but right now, there is no way to make gravitons in the laboratory that could be used to make a black hole. That technology could be used thousands or millions of years in the future once people do more research on mini primordial black holes and how they are created in space. If we find one out there, then people could probably make Hawking Radiation using a mini primoridal black hole that they might find. Kip Throne has said in his book "Black Holes And Time Warps" in the biginning of his book that future civilizations in space could harness the electrical energy from huge black holes that are out there, but I think that they could also use tiny black holes too.

[RussDill]

Originally posted by Ian
Maybe someone in the FUTURE could figure out a way to make mini primordial black holes artificially and generate Hawking Radiation that way and then use the energy from that to have as a power source but right now, there is no way to make gravitons in the laboratory that could be used to make a black hole. That technology could be used thousands or millions of years in the future once people do more research on mini primordial black holes and how they are created in space. If we find one out there, then people could probably make Hawking Radiation using a mini primoridal black hole that they might find. Kip Throne has said in his book "Black Holes And Time Warps" in the biginning of his book that future civilizations in space could harness the electrical energy from huge black holes that are out there, but I think that they could also use tiny black holes too.

You'd wouldn't be making energy from nothing. At best, you'd be converting matter to energy. I'm not sure where you are getting statements like "there is no way to make gravitons in the laboratory that could be used to make a black hole", or how they would relate to the creation of such an energy source.

[Ian]

You'd wouldn't be making energy from nothing. At best, you'd be converting matter to energy. I'm not sure where you are getting statements like "there is no way to make gravitons in the laboratory that could be used to make a black hole", or how they would relate to the creation of such an energy source.

The gravitons could probably warp spacetime so that a black hole could be created.

[RussDill]

Originally posted by Ian
The gravitons could probably warp spacetime so that a black hole could be created.

I'm not sure if any of the theoritical models for the graviton actually have that mediator doing any warping. If gravitons are the mediator of the gravitational force, all they would seem to do would be to pull matter towards you, which wouldn't be all that usefull when forming a black hole.

Now would would be usefull is dark energy, the force that seem to be pushing the universe apart. Harness that, and you could push matter together to form a blackhole.

[corplinx]

Originally posted by Ian
Is Zero Point Energy a legitimate source of energy?

Show me some zero point energy and I'll let you know.

[NarrMaster]

My take:

Is it real? Probably.

Is it extractable? Probably not.

[RussDill]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_point_energy