> The "Casimir effect" (firts proposed in 1948 afaik) is one such. Two plates
> are placed VERY close together. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle says
> that the gap cannot be empty as if it was we'd know there was nothing there
> and it wan't moving :-) so virtual particles are compelled to appear and
> annihilate continually. These have an effect on the plates. Only particles
> whose wavelength is an integral submultiple of the interplate spacing have
> any net effect. Energy density increases as spacing decreases. The plates
> are pulled together by a force which should be able to be utilised. Pulling
> them apart again may be difficult :-)

Is this related to Hawking radiation, where pairs of particles are constantly
appearing and annihilating, but occasionally one appears a little too close
to the event horizon of a singularity and its antiparticle zooms off into the
universe, causing the singularity to appear to emit radiation?

That's a long dig out of my very short memory.

Maybe we could make use of that...I've heard that at CERN they think that
they will be able to make very small artificial singularities before too long.
All we have to do is trick probability into creating a very large number of
pairs very close to the singularity.  Maybe that where an "infinite
improbability drive" could come in handy... ;-)

Mike H.
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