Preludes to dark energy: Zero-point energy and vacuum speculations

Details Preludes to dark energy: Zero-point energy and vacuum speculations Preludes to dark energy: Zero-point energy and vacuum speculations

2011-11-20

arxiv.org/abs/1111.4623v1

Physics

History and Philosophy of Physics

69 pages, 4 figures; submitted to Archive for History of Exact Sciences

Scientific paper

Although dark energy is a modern concept, some elements in it can be traced back to the early part of the twentieth century. This paper examines the origin of the idea of zero-point energy and in particular how it appeared in a cosmological context in a hypothesis proposed by Walther Nernst in 1916. The hypothesis of a zero-point vacuum energy attracted some attention in the 1920s, but without attempts to relate it to the cosmological constant that was discussed by Georges Lema\^itre in particular. Only in the late 1960s was it recognized that there is a connection between the cosmological constant and the quantum vacuum. As seen in retrospect, many of the steps that eventually led to the insight of a kind of dark energy occurred isolated and uncoordinated.

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