Physicists Use Quantum Mechanics to Pull Energy out of Nothing

Physicists Use Quantum Mechanics to Pull Energy out of Nothing




For their latest magic trick, physicists have done the quantum equivalent of conjuring energy out of thin air. It’s a feat that seems to fly in the face of physical law and common sense.


“You can’t extract energy directly from the vacuum because there’s nothing there to give,” said William Unruh, a theoretical physicist at the University of British Columbia, describing the standard way of thinking.

But 15 years ago, Masahiro Hotta, a theoretical physicist at Tohoku University in Japan, proposed that perhaps the vacuum could, in fact, be coaxed into giving something up.

At first, many researchers ignored this work, suspicious that pulling energy from the vacuum was implausible, at best. Those who took a closer look, however, realized that Hotta was suggesting a subtly different quantum stunt. The energy wasn’t free; it had to be unlocked using knowledge purchased with energy in a far-off location. From this perspective, Hotta’s procedure looked less like creation and more like teleportation of energy from one place to another — a strange but less offensive idea.

“That was a real surprise,” said Unruh, who has collaborated with Hotta but has not been involved in energy teleportation research. “It’s a really neat result that he discovered.”

Now in the past year, researchers have teleported energy across microscopic distances in two separate quantum devices, vindicating Hotta’s theory. The research leaves little room for doubt that energy teleportation is a genuine quantum phenomenon.

“This really does test it,” said Seth Lloyd, a quantum physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was not involved in the research. “You are actually teleporting. You are extracting energy.”