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ZPE

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Zero Point Energy

Often called the vacuum energy, the ZPE is often considered an innate property of empty space. It is however, real energy that must have come from somewhere.

Empty space is not empty, it's composed of ZPE. But what is ZPE? It's the total energy coming from all directions. We can expect most of it comes from the early universe, shortly after the Big Bang. Space expands when more events happen and contracts when events are lost from our window of observation.

http://www.xanthus.net/jim/images/ZPE.GIF

The ZPE has a high energy density, 175 giga electron volts per cubic meter, but since it is the lowest energy anywhere, all our measurement are relative to it. This if we measure 1 giga electron volt, it is really 176 when we add in the ZPE. That is why it is called "zero point", it is the lowest possible energy.

http://www.alien.de/hyperspace/ugc-qe.htm shows the ZPE to be equal to the the plank energy in the plank volume

"elementary particles represent a percentage-wise almost completely negligible change in the locally violent conditions that characterize the vacuum...In other words, elementary particles do not form a really basic starting point for the description of nature. Instead, they represent a first-order correction to vacuum physics." -- John A. Wheeler quoted in http://www.ldolphin.org/energetic.html

We know the universe started with extremely high frequency energy, but all the information from prior to the inflationary period manifesting is presumed to be lost. Is it really lost? Or is it the ZPE?

The energy spectrum we see is inversely related to energy density, we see few gamma rays, more xrays, more light and an energy density that increases down to the cosmic microwave background radiation where is suddenly goes down to zero rapidly. Is it not there or is it invisible? Ten billion years from now when the CBMR has redshihted into radio waves, will we still be able to measure it? Or will it also disappear once it sufficiently passes the energy of the ZPE.

A key issue is why we don't see it. The usual answer, it that it is the zero point. It is the lowest energy we see anywhere and only measure energy relative to it. Absolute zero energy is 175 GeV lower than the ZPE. But there is more to it. The answer lies in information theory. Too much information is noise. A maximally encoded message with a non-zero error rate to noise. It might be possible to decode the ZPE but it may take more states than exist in the universe. It appears so uniform that we have not trouble seeing even tiny signals we add on top of it. It is lost information in the macrocosm, but not lost in the microcosm.

From the perspective of the atom, the ZPE looks like a continuous spectrum of energy from all directions. The atom only "see" energy in it's range of reception. It absorbs and emits the signals it is tuned it to. These balance out and tend to keep the atom in the same place in it's reference frame. Now suppose we throw in some extra events on one side of the atom. Now it is moving with respect to its original frame. Energy in the original frame is red-shifted. The atom does not try to go back to that frame because it still sees equal energy in its listening range in the new frame. Hence Newtons laws.

How does the ZPE keep up with the expansion of the universe? Where does the energy come from?

Shouldn't the mass of the vacuum energy be counted as part of the mass of the universe? It would be much too much to account for the missing matter, unless it is really patchy and not uniform at all.

My gut feeling is that the ZPE will always appear the same to us giving constant values for the speed of light and Planck's constant. I'm not sure however if it is changing over the long term or not in a way that we would notice. -- JimScarver

Assuming the inverse relation between frequency (energy per photon) and energy density of observable radiation continues into ZPE, the ZPE would be infinite. Fortunately states changes are discrete and cannot not infinitely small or large. Following the inverse rule we can predict that ZPE is mostly single state change photons, plus 1/4 2 state change (25%), plus 1/9 3 state, plus 1/16 4 state, and so on.

In other words, for every 4 one state change photons there is one 2 bit change photon, for every 9 one bit photons there is one three state change photon, and so on until we reach the zero probability at the Planck energy.

<tasks> [ ] Verify that "most" equals 1/2, or 50% one state changes. If this is true, then there would only be 2 one state change photons per one 2 bit change photone. (Owner StarPilot) [ ] Verify this sum produces the observed 175 giga electron volts. </tasks>

See also InformationPhysics for where this definition was initially Collaborated and Truth About Gravity

http://www.calphysics.org/zpe.html

http://www.alien.de/hyperspace/ugc-qe.htm shows the ZPE to be equal to the the plank mass in the plank volume and shows the relation to gravity and inertia.

If the ZPE is not uniform, as some astronomical observations are suggesting, and as the expansion of the universe suggests is a must, the consequences are extreme, the speed of light would increase while planks constant would decrease.

SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

See FreeEnergy

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