Zero Point Energy doc
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| ZP OWER C ORPORATION PAGE OF 352 Z ERO P OINT E NERGY emanating from an electron treated as a structureless point source of the Coulomb electrostatic field. The result obtained was a quantiatively divergent infinite) interaction energy between the electron and its own radiation field. Despite many later attempts to correct this defect. none have yet succeeded. In the mid-1920s. the spectral evidence of the so-called anomalous Zeeman effect, as well as the observed space quantization of the electron magnetic moment demonstrated by the Stern-Gerlach experiment, compelled physicists to ascribe to the electron a self angular momentum factor called "spin) Yet the quantum aspects of this particular dynamics showed that spin could not in any sense be related to the intuitive notions of ordinary rotational motion. It was the first phenomenon in the history of science that had absolutely no correspondence with any concept in the macroscopic world. The mysterious nature of this notion was underscored by Born when he described it as "The idea of a spin without the existence of something spinning ..." Moreover, any attempts to ascribe a geometric structure to spin were summarily prevented by the development of the Schrodinger wave equation and Heisenberg matrix wave mechanics in the late s. According to the philosophical underpinnings of this so-called Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum theory. no structure of subatomic units (apart from point particles) is possible. In the early s, Dirac's model, based upon a relativistic covariant lin- earization of the Schrodinger equation, demonstrated that electron spin is a direct consequence of the mathematical structure of the theory) Specifically, this entailed the use of a unique four-component wave function (spinors) which accounted for the observed half-integral spin of the electron, the anomalous Zeeman effect, and the existence of negative energy states by the prediction of the positron. By the middles, the Dirac theory was found to be deficient since it could not account for the small, albeit measurable. anomalous magnetic moment of the electron. Through quantum electrodynamics as developed by Schwinger, Bethe, Feynman, the reason for the anomalous moment was discovered to be due to the electron's self-interaction with the substratum vibrations. To this, in turn, was appended the term zero-point vacuum fluctuations. One key experiment which verified the influence of the ZPF, was the Lamb shift of the spectral lines of hydrogen) The Zitterbewegung motion (ZBW), was then applied to the reaction of the electron to the ambient ZPF, describing the area in which the electron tends to oscillate with the dimensions of the Compton wavelength (V/mc). Actually, the concept of the ZBW concept was first introduced by Schrodinger to interpret high-frequency oscillations in free particle wave packets of the Dirac theory. These oscillations, with angular frequency 2mc^2 h. were interpreted as interference between positive and negative energy components of a wave packet. |