"Energy from the Vacuum - Concepts & Principles"
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Sent: Monday, March 14, 2005 5:14 PM
Subject: RE: charges, ZPE, VSE rachets, and mechanisms
 
Dave,
 
Thanks immensely for looking at the diagram and being sure I don’t drift off somewhere.
 
Interestingly, further pursuing the thing last night, the standard notion of “zero-point energy” (of an observable particle) is that the fundamental particle, when cooled to absolute zero, still has quantum mechanical motions ongoing. The prevailing “quick talk” conventional approach seems to be that, well, this is what physicists mean by the “quantum mechanical vacuum”. That can’t quite be true, because if it were, then that confuses the nonobservable (therefore virtual state) vacuum fluctuations as observable particles with remaining zero point motions. That’s a logical non sequitur, confusing “massless vacuum-space” with “space containing mass at zero degrees”.
 
So then the conventional question and approach is to point out that, when one calculates the point intensity of those “QM motions of the zero-point observable particle”, the energy density is a function of the cube of the frequency. So that means that one can integrate over a range of frequencies to get as big an energy density as one wishes. So to prevent saying “infinite energy density”, they arrange a “cutoff” frequency to restrict the range of integration where by agreement a given calculation is cut off to yield a finite number. That’s truncating an infinite series that overall sums to zero if not truncated, but cut off back where it’s still finite and thus has a finite sum. But that finite sum can still be very large, and it’s still “respectable” because of the Casimir discovery and proof that such energy produces measurable, observable results between two plates, creating an attractive force between them because the energy density between the plates is less than the energy density outside, hence they are being “shoved” together by outside “higher pressure” (although they call it an attractive force between the plates). The Lamb shift etc. adds additional experimental substance.
 
And so on. But a physicist can stay “respectable” and speak or work on “zero point energy” (observable energy) because some real observations (experiments) are there to support him. In conventional organizations and schools, however, he strays in the conventional view if he goes on out into the massless vacuum (by just removing the fundamental charged particle and its ZPE), and points out that since no measuring instrument records any actual energy density there, the energy density of the massless vacuum must be subquantal and thus nonobservable. And then tries to speak of “extracting energy directly from the virtual state itself”. At that point the physics community (peer pressure) comes down on him like a locomotive, burying him if he’s not careful.
 
So we did a little gedanken experiment, by combining two things. Take a fundamental particle, like an electron. Let it be a zero degrees temperature, so we have the zero point energy going on but nothing else dynamically. Now since the temperature cannot “decay” any further (leaving out the question of the meaning of negative temperature, since there are experiments where that is the only way to describe the results), common thermodynamics says no “heat” (ugh! They mean no emitted observable energy) can come out of that fundamental particle at zero degrees.
 
[Hold in your mind that the business of “negative temperature” means temperature and energy density greater than any POSITIVE temperature; that’s a matter to go into much later].
 
So we just suddenly produce that fundamental charged particle there, in the zero-point state, with our instruments set and ready, and we can in fact see the progress through space of real EM photons (observable) being emitted from that charge, with the formation and spreading of the associated fields and potentials in 3-space at light speed.  In fact, the darn charged particle DOES emit real photons continually, with no observable energy input. And so we do have the problem that either we have just destroyed the entire conservation of energy law (not likely!), or else there has to be a VIRTUAL STATE energy input, in some peculiar fashion where coherent integration of successive virtual energy inputs gets done, producing observable state photon emission. It also has to be an ITERATIVE process, since the emission of a photon iterates again and again, continually, as long as the charge exists.
 
So okay, I go back to the zero point condition. We hold onto the thermodynamics prohibition, and accept it. We  hold on to the zero point energy INITIAL situation, but then make the following observation: Since there is measurable photon energy coming out of the charge steadily by actual measurement showing the photons striking the instruments at various radii, then either we have to change the “prohibiting” thermodynamics itself, or we have to uncover some kind of new and automatic process that freely adds the required additional input energy to that zero point charge (from its environment). To emit observably, that ZPE charge must be lifted to at least the next higher quantum level, abruptly decaying back to ZPE level by the observable emission. In such case, the charge which was initially at its lowest possible quantum state, is moved by this additional potentialization (excitation) of the charge to one more quantum level higher than zero point level. At that level, charge has broken from its previous zero-point equilibrium state, and it has been excited one quantum level (also thereby momentarily changing its temperature) into disequilibrium. Now the old second law of thermodynamics permits a decay from this SECOND quantum level back to the initial ZPE level, by emission of an observable photon.
 
But once back at ZPE state level, the process iterates, causing another observable photon emission and abrupt decay.
 
In short, we have a sort of iterative “ratcheting” effect, profoundly similar to Feynman’s notions of rachets and racheting. There may be something profound down that road, particularly if it can be shown to fit Feynman’s racheting work. Here one seems to be ratcheting in the virtual state, driving the output of the ratchet to observable level, allowing emission of an observable photon whose energy component has been “ratcheted up” from the virtual state vacuum energy fluctuations.
 
Since we have (or can perform) instrumental proof of the iterative and continuing photon emissions, we then conclude that the new scenario or some similar scenario is absolutely required, if physics itself is to hold.
 
So now we look for that “additional excitation” mechanism constituting the “rachet” mechanism (hopefully Feynman would have loved it!)
 
Well, that diagram I sent you is apparently that additional ratcheting excitation mechanism, giving the negative entropy mechanism that is necessary to potentialize that ZPE state charged particle up to the next higher quantum level, where the second law cuts in, allows the abrupt decay by emission of a photon (performance of actual work which means changing the form of the energy – in this case from virtual state to observable state).  Further, it’s consistent with the notion of broken symmetry; breaking the symmetry of the vacuum energy provides for something virtual to become observable, as remarked by T. D. Lee.
 
All that thus gives a mechanism that at least is consistent with everything else, and which provides for those measurable emitted photons that continually come out of that charge without any measurable energy input.
 
This then is at least consistent with experimental demonstration of actions apparently from a mechanism that does allow consistency with all the objections raised against “going that extra mile” past ZPE state to see if the subquantal disordered virtual state fluctuations of the vacuum can provide the necessary energy source. And at least it seems that it can, more strongly every day.
 
That at least gives some consistency. It isn’t absolute proof, of course, but it is a proposed mechanism that can and I believe does meet all the criteria required.
 
If one gets too harsh critiquing, then one brings in the old “single white crow” fact. A single white crow is sufficient to prove that not all crows are black. So in the violation of the old second law of thermodynamics, several white crows are already known to thermodynamicists and accepted by them. One area is transient fluctuations (in any statistical system), and there are theorems and experiments that confirm it, already in the literature. Another area is sharp gradients, and it appears that any charge locally represents a very sharp gradient in the otherwise normal mass-free vacuum, suggesting that the source charge ought to be doing some kind of action that violates the second law of thermodynamics for the overall process.. As Prigogine and Kondepudi stated, such strong gradients do violate the second law, and “not much is known about it, either experimentally or theoretically”.
 
Anyway, that’s my thinking on it to date, so we will draw up another couple of diagrams for the briefing I’m working on.
 
Really hope things go well with you, Dave, and one of these days  (hopefully in the near future, as a young post doc working on those projects with Eitan and the German professor) I’m looking forward to seeing you authoring some VERY fundamental physics papers, carrying the old gal of “energy from the vacuum” over the threshold so that physics gets a new area and lots of new things that can be done. Such as completely resolving the energy crisis forever. I really expect to see Dave ******s’ name on the paper that does that!!!!
 
Very best wishes,

Tom