Casimir effect
Efecto Casimir (fuerza del vacío cuántico)
- Date
- 1948 · confidence high
- Place
- Philips Laboratory, Eindhoven, Netherlands
- Credited to
- Hendrik Casimir; Dirk Polder
- People
- 👤 Dirk Polder1919–2001👤 Hendrik Brugt Gerhard Casimir (Kasimier)1909–2000
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Two parallel metal plates in a vacuum attract each other because only certain modes of the electromagnetic field fit between them: the quantum vacuum has measurable energy. Confirmed with precision by Lamoreaux in 1997.
It arose from a practical problem posed by Philips about colloids.
What it led to
- Physical reality of vacuum fluctuations
- Nanotechnology and MEMS (forces at the nanoscale)
- Speculation on dark energy and vacuum energy
- Dynamical Casimir effect (2011)
Built on
- Lamb shift and anomalous magnetic moment of the electron1947
- Quantum electrodynamics (QED)1947-1949
- Van der Waals-London forces
Made possible
- Design of electromechanical microsystems
- Nanoscale force sensors