expanded typo-corrected 2nd draft from earlier message

Casimir Force: The irrelevant explanation of EVOs for the wrong reasons

On Sep 25, 2004, at 12:04 PM, Jack Sarfatti wrote:

Remember, macro-quantum vacuum coherence hides random micro-quantum zero point vacuum energy under the rug. Any random zero point energy that leaks out is exotic vacuum that contributes to the cosmological constant either as dark energy or dark matter depending on the sign of the pressure negative or positive respectively. Dark energy at a distance is a universal repulsive antigravity field. Dark matter at a distance is a universal attractive gravity field. Both fields can be stronger than what is expected from Newton’s constant. That is the effective Planck energy is smaller than 1019Gev. However, as possibly in the case of Ken Shoulders “charge clusters” the effective forces inside an extended exotic vacuum region can change sign! Indeed, that is why the EVO is stable and that is  also why the single electron is stable.

Alexander Burinskii in Moscow has rightly raised the issue of the distinction between renormalization and regularization of interacting field Feynman diagrams in special relativistic quantum field perturbation theory expansions in relation to the zero point energy problem. We need to see how all these ideas survive in quantum field theory in a c-number curved space dynamical background like in Birrell and Davies text book "Quantum Fields in Curved Space". The issue of the reality of quantum gravity foam of Einstein metric field Heisenberg uncertainty fluctuations is problematical in the soft condensed matter physics approach to gravity as a bottom-up emergent ODLRO macro-quantum phenomenon. That is gravity is a low energy effective c-number ODLRO macro-quantum coherent field theory that in principle is not to be quantized in the usual way the way QED is done. This feature is now being tested in gamma ray astronomy.

Why do Milonni's two naive free virtual photon field models of the Casimir force ~ hcA/d4 as virtual photon effects give, like Ptolemy’s epicycles, closed to the correct empirical answer for the wrong reasons?

In the simple boundary condition model using only free virtual photons Milonni computes

E(d) - E(infinity)

and he gets the cutoff-independent correct answer.

However, what he should compute is

E(d) + E(L - d)

Letting L >> d at the end.

The virtual photon ZPF force is then the negative gradient of this sum. This vanishes in 1 + 1 space-time.

The cosmological constant problem is that E(d) + E(L - d) is directly observable in general relativity. This is why Hal's "Type II Casimir Force" model is unacceptable because it requires a huge cosmological constant vacuum energy filling all space outside Ken Shoulders EVOs which have zero ZPE inside their charged shells at least below h/mc short wave cutoff. This contradicts general relativity that is the covering theory here. Any result from unstable globally flat quantum field theory that contradicts general relativity must be rejected. That is the basic problem with what Hal Puthoff is suggesting for metric engineering of warp, wormhole and weapon. Puthoff’s PV version of gravity is not consistent with Einstein’s general relativity as shown by his own assistant Michael Ibison. Lest, there be any confusion, I am not suggesting that the direct warping of space-time by zero point energy density is the explanation of the Casimir force. Indeed, the Casimir force as a direct electrostatic force of mutually induced dipoles in the uncharged conductors is observable only in the absenceof such strong zero point warping of space-time. I am suggesting that Ken Shoulders EVOs have such strong warping and have nothing to do with the Casimir force at all in the dominating approximation. Therefore, as Ian Peterson says, the Casimir force is not a way to tap the zero point vacuum energy of the virtual photons as the popular literature suggests. The only energy you can recover from the Casimir force is the weak mutually induced dipole electrostatic energies. Using the Casimir force as a pedagogical tool for zero point energy physics is profoundly misleading.