6 ms·

Optical-Cavity-Induced Current

72 points by graderjs 5y ago

_Microft 5y ago
Reference [24] seems to be important. “ The source of these optical modes could be the quantum vacuum field, which gives rise to the Casimir force [18,19,20,21], the Lamb shift [22], and other physical effects [23]. It was argued that the use of energy from the vacuum field does not violate fundamental laws of thermodynamics [24].“ Despite the importance of the question of „where the heck does the energy for that come from“, they give it surprisingly little space in the paper. [24] https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Extracting+Energy+and+Heat+from+the+Vacuum&author=Cole,+D.C.&author=Puthoff,+H.E.&publication_year=1993&journal=Phys.+Rev.+E&volume=48&pages=1562%E2%80%931565&doi=10.1103/PhysRevE.48.1562 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Extracting+E...
- plutonorm 5y ago
  Maybe this is dark matter. All those civilisations out there plugged directly into the background juice of the universe make it more 'grabby', slowing the rotation of galaxies. I always put my mad ideas out onto the internet because if they prove to be true then I have bragging rights. I'm still reading through ref 24 - that's the one that immediately grabbed my attention. Anyone know if the authors have some authority in the subject?
- nine_k 5y ago
  If it's just incoming photons, a photovoltaic element that does not need doped monocrystalline silicon might be a valuable find.
- qweqwweqwe-90i 5y ago
  Casimir force is most likely just a van der waals force (from polarization) and not at all related to the quantum vacuum fields.
  - Taniwha 5y ago
    The casimir effect is sort of by definition related to fluctuations in quantum vacuum fields https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect
    - qweqwweqwe-90i 5y ago
      That's one explanation for the force. Another is that it's just the electrons/atoms in the two plates attracting each other. It's literally mentioned in the page you linked.
- lumost 5y ago
  The most accessible interpretation of the quantum vacuum is that it is the “base” state of any system ( including free space ). How much energy is at least theoretically in this base state is either extraordinarily high or infinite. Now the challenge is that you can only extra energy when there is a difference in energy - the Cassini effect and others get work out of the vacuum via geometry. This geometry takes an equal amount of work to setup as it extracts.
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  The paper is very focused on explaining the phenomenon, what is good. It also lacks information on the measurement apparatus, what isn't good.
oofabz 5y ago
What is the practical application of this? Free energy?
- plutonorm 5y ago
  yup.literally free energy.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
Cool! Free electricity!
tinco 5y ago
Do I understand correctly that this is an effect that had not been predicted by any theory? And they assume it could be caused by some quantum effect but they have not worked out a full theory on it, I presume because that's simply not their ballgame.
- plutonorm 5y ago
  It seems to have been predicted by the lead author, who has then got a third party to manufacture and verify the device's function. I believe the function of the device is predicted from theories surrounding the Casimir effect.
tantony 5y ago
There's a video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tGRhTXKh8A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tGRhTXKh8A I will remain skeptical until it is independently reproduced and verified and gets demonstrated at scale.
- nynx 5y ago
  The description seems reasonable, but given how many times “zero-point energy” has been shown not to be harvestable, it’s unlikely that this is the time it worked.
  - tantony 5y ago
    This may turn out to be another EMDrive. But the implications of this claim being true are too great to ignore and warrants further investigation. I wonder what it would take in terms of expense/equipment to do an independent verification.
    - rbanffy 5y ago
      It’s a bit like the FTL neutrinos. We knew it couldn’t be, but the data showed otherwise, so they got to check everything down to the cable connections.
      - exmadscientist 5y ago
        The EMDrive is a better example, I think. The OPERA people knew from the start that they likely had an "uncontrolled systematic" and their measurement was likely to be wrong, so very few people got excited. The EMDrive got a lot of people excited over a minor error in a very difficult measurement. In both cases the general "science" public picked up on it, inappropriately, but in only one of the two cases were the flames fanned by the research team. (Compare also the Pioneer anomaly [0].) I do suspect this is just another EMDrive. Interacting with the vacuum to shift energy around is well-known (again, see Hawking radiation [1]), but holding on to it overall for long enough to violate the uncertainty principle (the one for the E-t commutator [2]) doesn't work. And I don't think you can hold it just long enough to reverse entropy... though that doesn't sound prima facie impossible. Making a measurement incorrectly, though... I do that every day I'm in the lab. Addition: Also, the MDPI journals are kinda-sorta just one step up from trash-tier, at least in my mind, so I don't pay much attention to work that can only manage to get in to one of them. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_anomaly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_anomaly [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle ...at least I think it's in there somewhere. Otherwise grab Griffiths!
mrfusion 5y ago
Any thoughts on where the energy comes from?
- dvh 5y ago
  From incorrect measurement
  - faeyanpiraat 5y ago
    Why don't we directly harvest incorrect measurements then?
Baeocystin 5y ago
The one standout graph to me from their paper showed that adding these sources in either serial or parallel configuration did not result in a linear increase of either current or voltage. 4x the units resulted in a 3.n multiplier. That looks to me like the beginning of a limit value that remains tiny. Of course, with only two points we can't tell if it's a curve or a straight line, and that doesn't happen by accident. In addition, the paper (paraphrased) says repeatedly that they've made thousands and thousands of these devices, and yet their entire serial/parallel exploration is a few combinations in the 4x regime. Nothing is said about throwing 1000+ of them in a row/parallel to see if a stronger signal emerges from the noise.
zaik 5y ago
Note that the publisher of this journal was at one point included in Beall's List and is known to have published pseudo-science before: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDPI https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDPI
- tantony 5y ago
  TBF, they also got published in an APS journal https://journals.aps.org/prresearch/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.L022007 https://journals.aps.org/prresearch/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev... I am not an expert in this field though and have no idea about the reputation or history of that journal.
- gtsnexp 5y ago
  Any idea how to access the original Beall's list? I could not find it in the wayback machine.
  - zaik 5y ago
    Archive link from Wikipedia: https://web.archive.org/web/20170112125427/https://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170112125427/https://scholarly... Wikidata query (incomplete, since many journals listed do not meet the notability criteria): https://w.wiki/Uxe https://w.wiki/Uxe
    - gtsnexp 5y ago
      Thanks. I was convinced that the Frontiers Journals would be highlighted, but couldn't find them. Interesting...
a9h74j 5y ago
Just from the paper (OP), they do not show their measurement setup on the electronics (I and V) side. Simply measuring the I-V characteristics of a quantum-sensitive device is a far cry from showing that it will spontaneously deliver both I and V -- i.e. power out. Even if it did, it might be through cooling of one of the masses involved. I.e., cooling of the thermal mass in a mirror or metal electrode. They are talking about harvesting, after all. [Edit: the APS paper also refers to hot carriers; sounds very much like coupling to the solid state.]

72 points by graderjs 5y ago

Reference [24] seems to be important. “ The source of these optical modes could be the quantum vacuum field, which gives rise to the Casimir force [18,19,20,21], the Lamb shift [22], and other physical effects [23]. It was argued that the use of energy from the vacuum field does not violate fundamental laws of thermodynamics [24].“ Despite the importance of the question of „where the heck does the energy for that come from“, they give it surprisingly little space in the paper. [24] https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Extracting+Energy+and+Heat+from+the+Vacuum&author=Cole,+D.C.&author=Puthoff,+H.E.&publication_year=1993&journal=Phys.+Rev.+E&volume=48&pages=1562%E2%80%931565&doi=10.1103/PhysRevE.48.1562 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Extracting+E...

plutonorm 5y ago
Maybe this is dark matter. All those civilisations out there plugged directly into the background juice of the universe make it more 'grabby', slowing the rotation of galaxies. I always put my mad ideas out onto the internet because if they prove to be true then I have bragging rights. I'm still reading through ref 24 - that's the one that immediately grabbed my attention. Anyone know if the authors have some authority in the subject?
nine_k 5y ago
If it's just incoming photons, a photovoltaic element that does not need doped monocrystalline silicon might be a valuable find.
qweqwweqwe-90i 5y ago
Casimir force is most likely just a van der waals force (from polarization) and not at all related to the quantum vacuum fields.
- Taniwha 5y ago
  The casimir effect is sort of by definition related to fluctuations in quantum vacuum fields https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect
  - qweqwweqwe-90i 5y ago
    That's one explanation for the force. Another is that it's just the electrons/atoms in the two plates attracting each other. It's literally mentioned in the page you linked.
lumost 5y ago
The most accessible interpretation of the quantum vacuum is that it is the “base” state of any system ( including free space ). How much energy is at least theoretically in this base state is either extraordinarily high or infinite. Now the challenge is that you can only extra energy when there is a difference in energy - the Cassini effect and others get work out of the vacuum via geometry. This geometry takes an equal amount of work to setup as it extracts.
marcosdumay 5y ago
The paper is very focused on explaining the phenomenon, what is good. It also lacks information on the measurement apparatus, what isn't good.

oofabz 5y ago

What is the practical application of this? Free energy?

plutonorm 5y ago
yup.literally free energy.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago

Cool! Free electricity!

tinco 5y ago

Do I understand correctly that this is an effect that had not been predicted by any theory? And they assume it could be caused by some quantum effect but they have not worked out a full theory on it, I presume because that's simply not their ballgame.

plutonorm 5y ago
It seems to have been predicted by the lead author, who has then got a third party to manufacture and verify the device's function. I believe the function of the device is predicted from theories surrounding the Casimir effect.

tantony 5y ago

There's a video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tGRhTXKh8A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tGRhTXKh8A I will remain skeptical until it is independently reproduced and verified and gets demonstrated at scale.

nynx 5y ago
The description seems reasonable, but given how many times “zero-point energy” has been shown not to be harvestable, it’s unlikely that this is the time it worked.
- tantony 5y ago
  This may turn out to be another EMDrive. But the implications of this claim being true are too great to ignore and warrants further investigation. I wonder what it would take in terms of expense/equipment to do an independent verification.
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    It’s a bit like the FTL neutrinos. We knew it couldn’t be, but the data showed otherwise, so they got to check everything down to the cable connections.
    - exmadscientist 5y ago
      The EMDrive is a better example, I think. The OPERA people knew from the start that they likely had an "uncontrolled systematic" and their measurement was likely to be wrong, so very few people got excited. The EMDrive got a lot of people excited over a minor error in a very difficult measurement. In both cases the general "science" public picked up on it, inappropriately, but in only one of the two cases were the flames fanned by the research team. (Compare also the Pioneer anomaly [0].) I do suspect this is just another EMDrive. Interacting with the vacuum to shift energy around is well-known (again, see Hawking radiation [1]), but holding on to it overall for long enough to violate the uncertainty principle (the one for the E-t commutator [2]) doesn't work. And I don't think you can hold it just long enough to reverse entropy... though that doesn't sound prima facie impossible. Making a measurement incorrectly, though... I do that every day I'm in the lab. Addition: Also, the MDPI journals are kinda-sorta just one step up from trash-tier, at least in my mind, so I don't pay much attention to work that can only manage to get in to one of them. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_anomaly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_anomaly [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle ...at least I think it's in there somewhere. Otherwise grab Griffiths!

mrfusion 5y ago

Any thoughts on where the energy comes from?

dvh 5y ago
From incorrect measurement
- faeyanpiraat 5y ago
  Why don't we directly harvest incorrect measurements then?

Baeocystin 5y ago

The one standout graph to me from their paper showed that adding these sources in either serial or parallel configuration did not result in a linear increase of either current or voltage. 4x the units resulted in a 3.n multiplier. That looks to me like the beginning of a limit value that remains tiny. Of course, with only two points we can't tell if it's a curve or a straight line, and that doesn't happen by accident. In addition, the paper (paraphrased) says repeatedly that they've made thousands and thousands of these devices, and yet their entire serial/parallel exploration is a few combinations in the 4x regime. Nothing is said about throwing 1000+ of them in a row/parallel to see if a stronger signal emerges from the noise.

zaik 5y ago

Note that the publisher of this journal was at one point included in Beall's List and is known to have published pseudo-science before: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDPI https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDPI

tantony 5y ago
TBF, they also got published in an APS journal https://journals.aps.org/prresearch/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.L022007 https://journals.aps.org/prresearch/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev... I am not an expert in this field though and have no idea about the reputation or history of that journal.
gtsnexp 5y ago
Any idea how to access the original Beall's list? I could not find it in the wayback machine.
- zaik 5y ago
  Archive link from Wikipedia: https://web.archive.org/web/20170112125427/https://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170112125427/https://scholarly... Wikidata query (incomplete, since many journals listed do not meet the notability criteria): https://w.wiki/Uxe https://w.wiki/Uxe
  - gtsnexp 5y ago
    Thanks. I was convinced that the Frontiers Journals would be highlighted, but couldn't find them. Interesting...

a9h74j 5y ago

Just from the paper (OP), they do not show their measurement setup on the electronics (I and V) side. Simply measuring the I-V characteristics of a quantum-sensitive device is a far cry from showing that it will spontaneously deliver both I and V -- i.e. power out. Even if it did, it might be through cooling of one of the masses involved. I.e., cooling of the thermal mass in a mirror or metal electrode. They are talking about harvesting, after all. [Edit: the APS paper also refers to hot carriers; sounds very much like coupling to the solid state.]