Zero-point energy in popular culture

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In popular culture zero-point energy rarely relates to the scientific notion of the subject. Instead it is seen as a mysterious source of energy, matching the Free energy suppression conspiracy theory.

The Casimir effect has established zero point energy as an uncontroversial and scientifically accepted phenomenon. However, due to a lack of public education in quantum mechanics, the term zero point energy has also become associated with a highly controversial area of human endeavour - the design and invention of so-called free energy devices, similar to perpetual motion machines in the past. These devices purport to "tap" the zero-point field and somehow "extract energy" from it, thus providing an "inexhaustible", cheap, and non-polluting energy source.

Controversy arises when such devices are promoted without scientifically acceptable proof that they tap the energy sources claimed. Promoters of a device demonstrate no understanding of how the device might do so; they demonstrate misunderstanding of widely accepted scientific facts and methods, in development or communication of a theory concerning a device; they make no attempt to include simpler explanations for the claimed performance of a device.

Any of these behaviours are liable to taint the reputations of those involved with such devices, and qualified researchers are therefore likely to be reluctant to make any attempt to verify or even seriously dismiss such a device until its promoters demonstrate enough competence to be taken seriously.

[edit] In fiction

In fiction, zero-point energy is often used as technobabble, usually to explain powerful sources of energy or devices that can lift heavy objects. Examples of such uses include the following:

A fictional weapon using zero-point energy, the gravity gun from computer game Half-Life 2.

• In the computer game Half-Life 2, one of the weapons used by the player is the "Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator", better known by its nickname the "Gravity Gun". It allows the user to pick up and launch any medium-sized objects, and was used to showcase the game's detailed physics engine.
• In the computer game Deus Ex: Invisible War, a datacube references a ficticious classified 1987 report to the US Congress that zero-point energy would soon become a cheap and readily available power source to replace fossil fuels.
• In the Justice League episode 'Hereafter', Vandal Savage had taken over the world and invented a Zero Point Generator in the boredom of immortality, which was used to power a time machine to transport Superman back to the present.
• In the movie The Incredibles, the villain character "Syndrome" uses a ray that can immobilize an opponent, suspending him in mid-air. Director Brad Bird, speaking in a DVD commentary, says that in searching for a name for the device (or at least a better one than "the Immobi-ray"), he came across and used a reference to zero-point energy, which Syndrome himself uses to describe his weapon. Bird decided to use this name because it is something that scientists are actually working on, which "bends his mind".
• Star Trek's quantum torpedo also utilises zero-point energy.
• The television show Stargate SG-1 and the spinoff, Stargate Atlantis also makes references to zero-point energy in the form of Zero Point Modules or ZPM's. These ZPM's, which extract energy from small artificially-created subspaces, are used to power the technology of the Ancients, such as the energy shield which protects the city of Atlantis. A Zero Point Module can also provide a Stargate with sufficient power to allow travel to another galaxy, or significantly increase the speed of a starship equipped with suitable hyperdrive engines. The Ancients also attempted to extract zero-point energy directly from our own universe in Project Arcturus, but the experiment failed and led to the destruction of a friendly civilization. A later attempt to perfect the technology by members of the Atlantis expedition ultimately led to the destruction of a whole solar system.
• Another television series called ZERO.POINT is in development that centers on the machinations of a quantum physicist searching for zero-point energy technology and a drifter who wanders in perfect synchronicity.
• In Marvel Comic's "Ultimate Secret" issue one, the disguised Captain Mahr-vell has helped humans develop a star drive based on zero-point energy. He offhandedly remarks that quantum wave fluctuations were discovered to cause inertia, which is the SED Hypothesis (covered here).
• In the second-season episode "Cipher" of the television series Alias, Sydney Bristow is tasked to retrieve a music box that supposedly contains a formula for zero-point energy.
• In 3001: The Final Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke humanity is tapping zero-point energy (or vacuum energy as it's called in the book). Human astronomers observed an explosion of a far-away star, and on further investigation found that the detonation started at one of the planets which destabilised the star itself. This event gives the characters nightmares, as it was assumed that some alien race was using zero-point energy and lost control.
• In the novel Revelation, by British astronomer Bill Napier, the lost plans for a 1940s era device which can utilize zero-point energy form the McGuffin driving the plot.
• The English industrial-electronic band Deathboy has a song entitled Zero Point.
• The novel Encounter With Tiber has a spacecraft that is powered by Zero Point Energy.
• The Anime series Martian Successor Nadesico uses "Phase Transition Engines" which are Zero Point Engines extracting Zero Point energy for thrust.
• Linda Nagata's novels Deception Well and Vast feature Berserker-like autonomous alien war machines called the Chenzeme, whose command of zero point energy gives them an overwhelming technological advantage over the novels' human civilizations.
• In James Rollins' 2006 thriller Black Order, the diabolical Waalenberg family of South Africa attempts to control zero point energy's effects on human beings in order to produce a master race and achieve global domination.
• Some "new age" writers, such as Barbara Marx Hubbard and Lynne McTaggart refer to zero-point energy in their writings about personal wellness.
• In The Venture Brothers Episode "Escape to the House of Mummies," Dr. Venture plans to use a "zero-point magnet" to disassemble a pyramid, before getting completely sidetracked.
• In Neal Asher's "The Voyage of the Sable Keech" the Polity is mentioned to have weapons which utilize zero-point physics
• In White Wolf, Inc.'s pulp role-playing game Adventure!, zero-point energy plays a major factor. Also known as z-waves or telluric energy, zero-point energy is a force that creates superhumans known as Inspired and is controlled by them to fuel their powers. It specifically allows Stalwarts and Mesmerists to draw upon their powerful physical and mental abilities and is implied to factor into a Daredevil's 'ability' to be astonishingly lucky.
• Tori Amos has a song entitled Zero Point. It was written for her 1999 release To Venus and Back but it wasn't released until her 2006 box set A Piano: The Collection.
• In Stephen Baxter's book Manifold: Time, a single point in space is induced to drop to a lower zero-point energy through a sufficient concentration of energy, creating a 'bubble' expanding at lightspeed that begins converting the rest of the universe to this new state.