Let there be light

Something cannot come from nothing. Simple. Or can it? Researchers at the Chalmers Institute of technology were able to successfully create light from a vacuum. Now understanding conventional physics you may be thinking... "What? No, Impossible! How can this be? My sandwich is cold. Something cannot just come from NOTHING". Well...you would be right and wrong at the...same time. *Gasp* Quantum superposition? You see according to quantum mechanics the empty space inside a vacuum really isn't empty space at all. Subatomic particles actually bounce in and out of existence for a short time and then suddenly dematerialize. These particles are deemed "virtual" particles because their existence is so fleeting, it is almost as if they didn't exist in the first place. So while these particles aren't exactly "nothing" they don't really exist in our reality.

How did the researchers go from nothing to something? Well it's really quite simple(not really). In order for virtual particles to leave their virtual state and become real particles, they must become "excited". The researchers were able to pull this off by using a SQUID (Superconducting quantum interface device) and then changing the direction of the magnetic field around it several billion times per second, at nearly 25% the speed of light. As virtual particles bounce in and out of the vacuum, some collide with the vibrating device which acts as a mirror to reflect the virtual particles. When the virtual particles bounce back from the "mirror" they absorb some of the kinetic energy which stabilizes them and helps them materialize. The resulting particles appeared as photons, which were then measurable as light.

So...we ended up materializing energy out of nowhere! That's like an infinite source of energy. I mean imagine what would happen if we could tap into this and create energy out of nowhere! Yeah, not so fast there partner. If you recall correctly, it took energy to stabilize the virtual particles in the first place so no, we are not violating the 1st law of thermodynamics, as there is still a conservation of energy. We did not obtain more energy than what was put in, and in a non frictionless environment, the movement of the SQUID would have generated some heat which would have been lost to the friction. What does this say about the conservation of matter? The photons that were materialized were massless (well all photons are) which is why they were relatively easy to stabilize. However, the more mass you try and stabilize, the more energy it takes to do that. So, in reality, you could have virtual electrons, protons, neutrons but in order to get them to "de-virtualize" you would need to imbibe them with a much higher amount of energy. Yet if you are materializing mass out of existence and adding it to the universe, wouldn't that be violating the law of mass conservation? Well, yes and no. If you recall correctly with Einstein's equation E=mcHammer...no...E=mc^2. Basically the mass of a body is the measurement of its energy content. Some matter can be converted to energy, and some energy can be converted to matter. Now if we are pumping energy out of the universe in order to materialize matter, the whole problem of violating the conservation of matter can be avoided. In reality, the law of conservation of matter can be broken in special cases, such as nuclear decay, and by using a certain amount of energy to create an equivalent amount of matter the equilibrium between both is sustained. If we are getting more matter we must put energy in. If we are getting more energy we must put matter in. What I really want to know is, where the heck do these virtual particles even come from?

http://www.chalmers.se/en/news/Pages/Chalmers-scientists-create-light-from-vacuum.aspx