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Creating the Physical World ex nihilo? On the Quantum Vacuum and Its Fluctuations

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The Two Cultures: Shared Problems

Abstract

A vacuum is a volume of space that is essentially empty of matter, such that its gaseous pressure is much less than standard atmospheric pressure. The root of the word vacuum is the Latin adjective vacuus which means“empty,” but space can never be perfectly empty [1, 2]. A perfect vacuum with a gaseous pressure of absolute zero is a philosophical concept that is never observed in practice, not least because quantum theory predicts that no volume of space can be perfectly empty in this way.

It is only through refined measurements and careful experimentation that we can have a wider vision of things: we see things that are far from what we would guess — far from what we could have imagined. Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there. Richard Feynman (1967) [1].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Centre de Mathématiques Laboratoire de l’Univers et ses Théories (LUTH), Observatoire de Paris-Meudon, EHESS-CAMS, Paris, France

    Luciano Boi

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  1. Luciano Boi
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Chimica Biologica, Università degli Studi di Padova Istituto Veneto di Medicina Molecolare, Padova, Italy

    Ernesto Carafoli

  2. Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy

    Gian Antonio Danieli

  3. Dipartimento di Elettrotecnica, Elettronica e Informatica, Università degli Studi di Trieste, Italy

    Giuseppe O. Longo

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Boi, L. (2009). Creating the Physical World ex nihilo? On the Quantum Vacuum and Its Fluctuations. In: Carafoli, E., Danieli, G.A., Longo, G.O. (eds) The Two Cultures: Shared Problems. Springer, Milano. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-0869-4_5

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