But in my hesitant state of mind, a lingering question of how it all began remained unanswered. It was a thread that I was holding on to in my belief that the trigger for the Big Bang or whichever way the universe, nature and science was created was pulled by a god who prefers to remain hidden from his creation. This question, however, seem to have been brought to light in a recent article in a magazine I bought a couple of weeks ago. In the 19th of November issue of New Scientist magazine, one of the featured articles was on the 'ether'. Before I attempt a summary, please put on your wacky Quantum Science helmets as it'll probably be a bumpy ride!
First we'll introduce the Casimir effect. Basically when two plates are put very close to one another within a vacuum one would expect that, due to the lack of any foreign interference or particles, the two plates aught to remain in place. Afterall, without a force pushing these plates should not move according to Newtonian physics. In practice however, the plates instead get closer to one another within this vacuum! The reason for this is that even in vacuum there are 'virtual' photons which push the plates together. To put it simply, even in vacuum there is always energy, the lowest form of energy; Zero-point energy.
A recent study took this energy one step further and proved that if an object travelled close to the speed of light within this vacuum, the virtual photons will absorb some of the travelling object's kinetic energy and produce real photons (light). Basically; something can be created from nothing. Infact experimentation on an atomic level has shown that even in vacuum, energy inside a box of a given size has an unlimited amount of energy. In other words, vacuum in any given space contains infinite amounts of energy. The only way to create a measurement of some sort with regards to how much energy exists inside a box is to compare two boxes of different sizes. The difference is very small but it does exist and it conclusively proves that energy exists in vacuum. It exists where there is absolutely 'nothing'.
In quantum mechanics, waves behave the same way as particles, and thus this energy that exists could take the form of particles where they are photons for the electromagnetic field, gravitons for the gravitational field, and so on - popping out of nowhere and then disappearing again. These energy particles popping in and out of existence is what is known as quantum fluctuations.
So what is the ether? It is the invisible quantum vacuum. It is what occupies the vast emptiness of the universe. The ether has been also named by scientists as the 'dark energy'. This is something that science is yet to fully understand. Infact, a new branch of science altogether would be needed to study dark energy under the umbrella of quantum science. What is certain though, is that the question that keeps alot of theists holding on to god and religion is not out of the realm of human reason.
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