Far out cosmology: Paul Davies and 'quantum ether' (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, January 29, 2016, 01:12 (3011 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Friday, January 29, 2016, 01:26

A new proposal about quantum space and an 'ether' of virtual particles from Paul DAvies;-http://www.meta-religion.com/Physics/Cosmological_physics/liquid_space.htm-"In 1976 I began investigating what quantum mechanics might have to say. According to quantum field theory, the vacuum has some strange properties. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle implies that even in empty space, subatomic particles such as electrons and photons are constantly popping into being from nowhere, then fading away again almost immediately. This means that the quantum vacuum is a seething frolic of evanescent "virtual particles".-"Although these particles lack the permanence of normal matter, they can still have a physical influence. For example, a pair of mirrors arranged facing one another extremely close together will feel a tiny force of attraction, even in a perfect vacuum, because of the way the set-up affects the behaviour of the virtual photons. This has been confirmed in many experiments.-"So clearly the quantum vacuum resembles the ether, in the sense that there's more there than just nothing.-"Like the ether of old, the quantum vacuum exerts no frictional drag on a particle with constant velocity.-"But it's a different story with acceleration. The quantum vacuum does affect accelerating particles. For example, an electron circling an atom is jostled by virtual photons from the vacuum, leading to a slight but measurable shift in its energy.-***-"And there is a curious pointer to something deeper. Quantum physics is famed for its "non-locality": the fact that it is not possible to characterise the physical situation at a point in space without reference to the state of the system in the wider surroundings. The quantum vacuum is no exception, since its state is defined across all of space. This enables it to "feel" the structure of the entire Universe, and thereby to link the global and the local in precisely the manner that Mach had in mind. This nonlocality hints at a possible connection between local physics and distant matter in the Universe -a connection that could be mediated by the quantum ether. Among other things, it could explain why we share an absolute frame of acceleration with the distant stars.-"This is not the ether of Maxwell. Rather than being the medium that transmits light, it is made of light-virtual photons-and other virtual particles.-***-"The Greek philosophers' original argument against the void has lost much of its force, because physicists today have little difficulty imagining the concept of empty space. But now they question whether space itself is truly fundamental. Perhaps space as we know it is a special configuration of a deeper quantum entity, the properties of which we can only guess at. Far from abhorring a vacuum, nature may have worked very hard to create one.-Comment: Another example that our space is something, not a true vacuum but a virtual vacuum, and the entire universe is connected; it is truly non-local. A real mystery.