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[Scood]

Here is a new theory that is the complete opposite of what is traditionally thought...though if i read it corrrectly its not truly comming from nothing but from what we "percieve" as a vacuum.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101208130038.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29

[Earthquake Damage]

Haven't read yet, but I'm guessing they've found a way to convert some sort of dark energy into something visible?

After reading it, either I fail reading comprehension or it doesn't offer much information.

[SHAD0Wdump]

I see two things in this, either this could be the sort of technology that, if refined, could get us free energy, which means we beat entropy.

On the other hand, this sounds like the sort of crap that will tear apart the fabric of reality and get us all slurped up by a man-made quantum singularity. 0P

[x2yzh9]

I think what it's saying is it's trying to prove that there is no such thing as a 'void', truly, it's trying to prove that everything is matter. When one goes to oxygen deprived space, there must be matter, or else it would be the same as before the big bang, no? I think the theory is very interesting and a breakthrough.

[SHAD0Wdump]

And again, only two ways I could see this go wrong in the grand scope of things.

A: We underestimate the capacity of this and destroy our own planet in a matter antimatter detonation. Meaning we cannot harness this technology anymore because we killed ourselves off in one fell swoop.

B: The universe actually has impassible boundaries. As in, walls. If so, we can only grow so much. Through technology we could probably get past whatever we find, but if it really is an absolute, we are boned even with free energy.

[Dakk]

This is pretty interesting, if we can derive a practical way to produce matter and antimatter at a reasonable and controllable rate from this, we can basicaly have free energy anywhere we have a device capable of doing this. This could solve some of the biggest problems we're faced with. Imagine a spaceship's engine that never runs out of fuel, an energy plant that produces clean, nigh infinity energy. If this works, maybe I'll get to see something like that in my lifetime.

Of course we might just tear reality apart and end up imploding the start system, but hey, Its worth a try

[Tellemurius]

i like how it says: Theoretical Breakthrough.
it would be like fusion where we have to put MASSIVE amounts of energy in to activate the reaction that hopefully can sustain itself plus more and we are able to contain the energy from escaping and going critical. Singularity anyone?

[alway]

I'm fairly certain this isn't new.
...

Confirmed: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19327-lasers-could-make-virtual-particles-real.html
Basically it takes a metric crapton of energy, since it requires ripping virtual pairs apart before they anhialate.

In fact, from the linked article:
 

In 1997, physicists at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in Menlo Park, California, used laser light to create a few electron-positron pairs.

[Soadreqm]

I wouldn't worry. The first law of thermodynamics is one of the most accepted things in physics. And most of the quotes inserted talk about how it's fascinating to find that vacuum isn't really vacuum, rather than going holy-shit-I-solved-the-Heat-Death. Considering that the article speaks of high-energy electron beams and intense laser pulses, I would guess that the journalist responsible misunderstood the theory, and in reality it describes something like creating matter and antimatter from energy. Which would still be useful I guess, but nothing like creating energy out of nothing. If someone actually found a way to create energy out of nothing, that would be something of a big deal.

[MonkeyHead]

100% this isnt a totally new idea - originates at least in the early 70's. Read up on Hawking Radiation - in theory, if a pair of particles (one matter, one anti matter) is produced near the event horizon of a black hole, it could prevent them recolascing into gamma rays as one (the antimatter one, in order not to defy thermodynamics) falls into the singularity, reducing its mass slightly... "evaporating" it if you will. the other could be detected, probably in the form of IR EM radiation...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation

[Earthquake Damage]

Confirmed: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19327-lasers-could-make-virtual-particles-real.html
Basically it takes a metric crapton of energy, since it requires ripping virtual pairs apart before they anhialate.

So, nifty but useless.  Well, I suppose it could be used to store the laser's energy as antimatter, which could then be used as high-energy-density fuel.

[Urist Imiknorris]

So basically antimatter batteries?

[Tellemurius]

or reactors.

[Eagleon]

Nowhere in either articles does it say that the energy involved is being consumed, which is interesting, but it's likely just be an omission (edit: or an oversight on my part ^^;). If that's the case, you could keep cycling the laser and produce more pairs, but my first guess is that some of the laser's energy bleeds off into the new particles as heat? I'd love to read more about this.

RE: Physicists lack of excitement at this; Any sane researcher knows better by now than to generate undue hype before saying their technology is the next Nuclear Fission. Taleyarkhan and numerous others have proved it's almost career suicide if you're wrong. They might be "holy-shit-I-solved-the-heat-death" excited, but if any of them have families, I would be surprised if they weren't being cautious. I'm cautiously optimistic, and at the same time... I have to agree, this would be scary shit if developed in the wrong direction.

Pity I work in an hour, will be thinking about this without any real data, hehe.

[Virex]

As far as I can read it, the idea behind this is that if you put enough energy into a "vacuum", that "vacuum" will be torn apart into mater-antimatter pairs which, due to the energy involved, don't get the time to annihilate each other. You're consuming the energy of the beams, not to create new particles, but to separate a particle-antiparticle pair. This takes as much energy as is released when mater and anti-mater reacts (at 100% efficiency, mind you) so you're not getting a free lunch here. The only Whoa about this theory is that if it's right this means you're not making new particles in this way, but actually splitting existing particle pairs.