Latest Casimir effect Stories
Scientists at Chalmers have succeeded in creating light from vacuum – observing an effect first predicted over 40 years ago. The results have been published in the journal Nature. In an innovative experiment, the scientists have managed to capture some of the photons that are constantly appearing and disappearing in the vacuum. The experiment is based on one of the most counterintuitive, yet, one of the most important principles in quantum mechanics: that vacuum is by no means empty...
DARPA to provide funding to quell Casimir forceScientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory are developing a way to control the Casimir force, a quantum mechanical force, which attracts objects when they are only hundred nanometers apart."The Casimir force is so small that most experimentation has dealt simply with its characteristics," said Derrick Mancini, interim director of the Center for Nanoscale Materials. "If we can control this force or...
Research team discovers a new use for metamaterials that promises to eliminate mechanical friction in nanotechnologyNanoscale machines expected to have wide application in industry, energy, medicine and other fields may someday operate far more efficiently thanks to important theoretical discoveries concerning the manipulation of famous Casimir forces that took place at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory.The groundbreaking research, conducted through mathematical simulations,...
Scientists say they have discovered the mechanism that causes tiny objects to levitate, a discovery that may pave the way for the ability to create nanotechnology machines in the future. The apparent levitation was observed as a result of repulsive force between a thin sheet of silica and a small gold-plated bead, Harvard physicist Federico Capasso and colleagues reported in the journal Nature.This so-called Casimir force of repulsion could be replicated and used to create friction-free...
Cymbals don't clash of their own accord "“ in our world, anyway.But the quantum world is bizarrely different. Two metal plates, placed almost infinitesimally close together, spontaneously attract each other.What seems like magic is known as the Casimir force, and it has been well-documented in experiments. The cause goes to the heart of quantum physics: Seemingly empty space is not actually empty but contains virtual particles associated with fluctuating electromagnetic fields. These...
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- The quest for a single theory that unites all of the universe's fundamental forces has thus far eluded physicists, but that has not stopped a team of them from clearing the way for nanotechnologists while they look for it. The group, which includes Purdue University's Ephraim Fischbach, has recently completed research that improves our understanding of how tiny objects placed very close together can influence each other. Their experiment, which involves the behavior...
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. "“ The quest for a single theory that unites all of the universe's fundamental forces has thus far eluded physicists, but that has not stopped a team of them from clearing the way for nanotechnologists while they look for it. The group, which includes Purdue University's Ephraim Fischbach, has recently completed research that improves our understanding of how tiny objects placed very close together can influence each other. Their experiment, which involves the behavior...
