The laws of quantum mechanics are confusing to many, even those who claim to understant it are often confounded and confused by it, predicting particles are also waves, something many still struiggle to get their head around. and that cats are simultaneously alive and dead
However, one of the most misunderstood principles of quantum mechanics is
Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle, which is commonly explained by asking the question -is the cat in the box simultaneously alive and dead? but what it is actually saying, and what Heisenberg was actually stating is that we cannot simultaneously measure the location and movement of a subatomic particle.
While using cats in a box is a good representation of the principle, Heisenberg also stated that you cannot measure the energy of anything perfectly, that the shorter your measurement time, the less accurate and precise your measurement will be. In its most extreme, if we try endeavour to take a measurement in zero time, that measurement will be infinitely imprecise and effectively meaningless.
These quantum principles have mind bending consequences for anyone trying to understand the nature of nothing. For example, if you try to measure the amount of energy at a location — even if that energy is supposed to be nothing — you still cannot measure zero precisely. Occasionally, when you take the measurement, your expected zero result turns out to be non-zero, this isn’t just a measurement problem, it’s a feature of reality. Measured in a short enough timescale - Zero is not always Zero - it is some value other than zero!.
When you combine this counterintuitive fact with Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2 , there is an even stranger consequence, Relativity states unambiguously, and has been proved in experiment after experiment that energy and matter are interchangeable, but when combined with quantum theory, this means that in any location that we believe to be the perfect vacuum, so entirely devoid of both matter and energy, that vacuum will briefly fluctuate to between the zero energy state we expect and the non-zero energy state the theory predicts, thus, energy flitting in an out of existance can actually make matter and antimatter particles.
Thus, at the smallest quantum level, no vacuum, and thus space can be thought of as truly empty. The realisty is that it is highly energetic, with subatomic particles appearing and disappearing unpredicatbly and it what appears to be a wanton abandonment of what we think is real - quantum mechanics and nature does not really care what we think, it only cares what it can do, regardless of how this confuses or upsets us.
The appearing and disapearing of these subatomic particles, and theior anti-particles has some superficial resemblance to the aerated hot milk foamed onto coffee, the water vapour and air bubbles seemingly appearing and disappearing at random — hence calling this quantum state “quantum foam.”
Be aware quantum foam isn’t just theoretical, It's very real. A classic demonstration of this occurrs when researchers measure the magnetic properties of subatomic particles such as electrons, if the theory of the "quantum foam" was wrong, electrons would be magnets with a specific field strength, but in practice, when measurements of the electron field strength are made, the result is that the magnetic strength of electrons is slightly higher (by about 0.1%) that theory predicts, however, when the effects due to quantum foam are taken into account, the theory and the measured results align perfectly — to an amazing twelve digit accuracy.
Another important demonstration of the existance of quantum foam comes courtesy of the Casimir Effect, named for Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir. The Casimir Effect Theory went something like this - Take two metal plates, placing them within a few fractions of a millimeter apart but in a vacuum, if the quantum foam idea is right, then the vacuum surrounding the plates is filled with an unseen zoo of subatomic particles that are simultaneously blinking into and out of existence.
These particles will have a wide range of energies, with the most likely energy being very small, but occasionally higher energies will appear, this is where more familiar quantum effects come into play because classical quantum theory says that particles are both particles and waves and the waves, thus, have a wavelength.
Outside the tiny gap, all waves of all lengths can fit exist without any restriction, however, inside the gap, only the waves that have a wavelength shorter than the gap can exist, the longer wavelengths are simply excluded. The result of this is that there are a greater density of particles outside the gaps than inside it, the net effect of this results is a measurable net pressure inward such that if the quantum foam is real the plates will be forced closer together.
Over the years since he first proposed this in 1948 many researchers had made several measurements of the Casimir effect, but the results were always inconclusive, however, in 2001, in a seminol paper,
Measurement of the Casimir force between parallel metallic surfaces by G. Bressi, G. Carugno, R. Onofrio, and G. Ruoso, the effect was conclusively demonstrated. This demonstration described in the paper proved that the plates would, indeed, move together and thus the existance of quantum foam was proven.
Now, lets take a look at the claim made in the video, can a propeller be made to utilise the quantum foam and the continual appearance and disaperance of sub-atomic particles and their anti-particles in order to harnish energy to either generate real energy, or to power a spacecraft?
Nature gives nothing away for free, if you are going to extract energy from the quantum world via this process, then what happens to energy being used in the process? Electric fields and magnetic field require energy, we are not talking about conventional magnets here, your neodymium magnet from Amazon will be no good for this purpose.
I would need to look at the maths of this properly but my gut feeling is that this will not work because the energy required to maintain the generating equipment would exceed the energy generated on a scale that would make it the most inefficent energy generation humans had concocted. You need to bear in mind that E=mc2, mass and energy are interchangeable, the energy contained in the equipment would far exceed the random energy that would be generated in the vacuum. The energy would be miniscule, the energy of an electron/positon pair (The energy of an electron at rest, also known as its rest energy, is
8.19×10-148.19x10E-14 joules (0.511Mev), this equates to a mass of 9.109×10E-31kg x c2) [the same applies to the positron, or as little as a quark perhaps, randomly, a proton may be produced,
perhaps randomly a Proton (the rest energy of a proton is ~ 939.39MeV [1.503x10E-10 Joules) which also corresponds to a mass of 1.67×10E-27kg or 1.007276470(12)
u (atomic mass units).
I just ran the numbers, to generate 1kW of energy from quantum fluctuations using the casimir effect would require two plates with a surface area of 6.5X 10E+23m2 - which is about a billion times the surface area of planet Earth - the mass would be astronomical (pardon the pun), this would be on the scale of planets, even using unknown lightweight materials - the gravitational energy of these plates would exceed the energy you could ever generate, assuming some magic material that was strong enough to withstand the rigours of the forces that would be acting on it, and also super lightweight, lets assume 1kg/m3, lighter than most foams, the mass of each plate would be equivilent to around 1000x Earth's mass, or 3.14 Jupiters!! Using known physics, the gravitational energy alone would be on the order of 23 magnitudes higher than any energy you could ever generate from the quantum foam.
Personally, I would not waste your time.
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