- 3026 - CASIMIR - force and vacuum energy? - How Vacuum Energy is affecting nanotechnology and expanding the Universe?
-------------------- 3026 - CASIMIR - force and vacuum energy?
- The picture above is that of a tiny ball 200 micrometers in diameter balanced on the probe of an atomic force microscope. Placed in a vacuum and reduced to temperatures of near Absolute Zero a small force remains.
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- It is a Vacuum Force that we are just beginning to measure and may even be the Dark Energy that is accelerating the expansion of the Universe.
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- Picture - Atomic Force Microscope.
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- The force between the gold plated polystyrene ball and the gold plated metal plate is very small but it is not the force of an electric charge, it is not the force of magnetism, it is not the force of gravity because it is repulsive not attractive, all that is left is the force in the vacuum of space itself. It is called the “Casimir Force“.
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- The Casimir Force exists at only the very smallest of distances. But, at the same time it may be expanding space throughout the Universe. We call the cosmic force expanding the Universe at an ever accelerating rate “Dark Energy“. It is also called “Vacuum Energy” intrinsic in the vacuum of free space.
- The Casimir Force was first discovered in 1948 when scientists were trying to understand why mayonnaise and molasses flowed so slowly. Really that’s the truth. Slow as molasses yet expanding the Universe faster than the speed of light.
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- In 1948 Hendrik Casimir was studying “colloidal solutions” to try to learn why neutral atoms in molasses has a mutual attraction that caused them to flow so slowly compared to other free flowing solutions. He decided that it was an attractive force in the vacuum of space between the atoms, or molecules.
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- Casimir tried to measure this attractive force in a vacuum by hanging two parallel plates very close together without touching. Sure enough a repulsive was found. Each plate was perfectly smooth. Each plate was perfectly parallel to the other plate. Each was 1 square centimeter in area and separated by only 1,000 nanometers.
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- The force measured was 10^-7 Newtons. That is 0.0000001 kilograms * meters / seconds^2. To explain these units for a Newton of force remember that Energy is a Force operating over a distance. Or, a Force is Energy / distance. E=mc^2 helps us to remember that units for Energy is kilograms * meters^2/seconds^2.
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- To get the units for Force we divide by distance to get kilograms*meters / seconds^2, which are called Newtons of Force. Of course 0.0000001 Newtons is a very small force.
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- The experiment ran into many difficulties working at such small distances. The plates were not perfectly smooth. They could not be held perfectly parallel. But, the results concluded that the Casimir Force was proportional to the Area and inversely proportional to the 4th power of the gap distance.
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----------------------- Force = Area / (distance)^4
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------------------------ F = A / d^4
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- If the gap was reduced by a factor of 2, the Casimir Force increased by a factor of 6.
The force measured was about equivalent to the weight of a small water droplet one millimeter in diameter.
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- If we continued the experiment and reduced the gap to 10 nanometers ( about the distance of 100 atoms in line side-by-side) then the force would equal 1 atmosphere, or about 14.7 pounds per square inch.
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- It is estimated that these difficult measurements are only within 15% of the theoretical value for the Casimir Force. Similar difficulties were encountered in trying to measure the force of gravity at these dimensions.
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- The force of gravity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the masses. But, science has only been able to make these measurements down to distances of 220,000 nanometers. But, the formula for gravity seems to hold true:
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---------------------- Force of Gravity = G * m * M / d^2
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--------------------- G is the Gravitational Constant for the units measured
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--------------------- “m” and “M” are the two masses
--------------------- “d” is the distance between the centers of the two masses.
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------------------------------ The theoretical equation for the Casimir Force is:
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------------------- Casimir Force = pi * h * c / 480 * d^4
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--------------------- pi = 3.14
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---------------- h = Planck’s Constant = 6.625 * 10^-34 kilograms * meters^2 / second.
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--------------------- c = the speed of light = 300,000,000 meters / second.
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--------------------- d = the gap distance = 0.001 meters.
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- The atomic force microscope making the Casimir measurement reduced the gap to 1 millimeter. The 0.2 millimeter sphere was chosen because of the difficulty in keeping plates parallel and equal distant during the measurement.
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- The sphere made the calculations more difficult but the physical experiment easier to control. The Casimir Force that flexed the microscope probe was measured by a laser beam. The Force measured was withing 1% of the theoretical value.
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------------------ Casimir Force = 3.14 * 6.625*10^-34 * 3* 10^8 / 480 * (10^-3)^4
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----------------- Casimir Force = 10^-14 Newtons.
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- This is a very small number. You can see how difficult this measurement must be. What would explain such a force coming from a perfect vacuum of free space? The vacuum is absent of all matter, but, it is not absence of all fields.
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- The electromagnetic fields and the gravitational fields traveling freely through a vacuum. According to Quantum Mechanics all particles are waves and have a wave-particle duality. All particles have fluctuations with wave like properties.
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- The same is true of all fields. All fields have fluctuations at the quantum level that can be described as waves. Fields jitter back and forth, to and fro, as a wave of energy. In free space all wave frequencies and their wavelengths are equivalent and radiate in all directions.
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- However, in a cavity, or in a small gap between objects, the waves reflect back and forth. It the wavelengths are integer multiples equal to the size of the cavity, or the size of the gap they reinforce each other and cancel each other becoming Standing Waves.
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- Standing Waves can amplify the magnitude of the original waves. This is how lasers and microwave ovens work. The Standing Waves increase in energy and create a force on the objects, or the boundaries causing their reflections.
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- The Casimir Force is believed to be created by the fluctuations of the fields in free space itself.
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February 5, 2021 CASIMIR - force and vacuum energy? 1237 3026
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