在量子力学中，虚无即是一切可能之始。
内容总结：
量子真空：看似“空无一物”，实则蕴含万物潜能
在经典认知中，将容器彻底清空意味着移除一切物质。但量子力学揭示，即便动用科幻技术移走所有可见与不可见的粒子，所谓的“真空”也远非空无一物。其中无法消除的残余能量，被称为基态能量或零点能。
零点能普遍存在于受约束的体系之中，无论是电磁场等量子场，还是原子、分子等离散物体。即使将温度降至无限接近绝对零度，它们仍保有最低限度的能量。这源于海森堡不确定性原理：一个物体无法同时具有确定的位置和速度，因此其能量不可能降至真正的“零”。
这一概念自1911年由普朗克提出后，被爱因斯坦等物理学家用于解释诸多现象，例如分子在最低能态下的细微振动，以及液氦在极低温下仍不凝固的特性。近期，欧洲X射线自由电子激光装置的研究团队在近绝对零度下击碎有机分子，发现其解离后原子运动仍有关联，为分子即使在基态下也存在振动提供了新证据。
零点能最著名的宏观效应之一是卡西米尔力。1948年，卡西米尔预言，真空中两片不带电的平行金属板会因为限制其间电磁场的波动模式，受到一种相互吸引的力。该效应于1997年被明确观测到，成为零点能存在的有力证明。
在量子场论中，真空被描述为所有量子场的基态。每种场都包含无穷多个振动模式，理论上真空应蕴含无限的零点能。物理学家通过计算能量差来处理这些无穷大，但由此引出一个深刻难题：如此巨大的能量应产生极强的引力效应，足以摧毁宇宙，但现实宇宙却保持稳定。为何真空能量在引力上似乎“沉默”，仍是未解之谜。
因此，量子真空远非纯粹的“空”。它并非存在本不该有的东西，而是一种蕴含着一切可能性的“无”。正如物理学家所言，真空中虽可能没有一个实体的电子，却弥漫着“电子性”。零点能本质上是一切可能物质形式（包括尚未发现的）潜在性的总和。它提醒我们，在量子世界里，“空”即是“有”的源头，是万物得以涌现的基底。
中文翻译：
在量子力学中，虚无即万有之源
引言
假设你想清空一个盒子——真正彻底地清空它。你取出所有可见内容，抽尽内部气体，并借助某种科幻技术移除暗物质等不可见物质。根据量子力学理论，盒中最终会剩下什么？
这听起来像是个陷阱题。而在量子力学领域，你早该预料到答案必然暗藏玄机。盒子不仅依然充满能量，你为清空它付出的所有努力，对其中能量的削减几乎微乎其微。
这种无法消除的残余能量被称为基态能或零点能。它有两种基本形式：盒中能量属于与电磁场等场相关的类型，另一种则与原子、分子等离散物体相关联。你可以抑制场的振动，却无法彻底抹去其存在的所有痕迹；而原子和分子即使被冷却到无限接近绝对零度，依然会保留能量。这两种情况背后的物理原理本质相同。
零点能是所有至少受到部分约束的物质结构或物体（如分子中受电场束缚的原子）的固有特性。这就像落入谷底的球体：其总能量由势能（与位置相关）和动能（与运动相关）共同构成。若要将两者同时归零，就必须同时精确测定物体的位置与速度，而这正是海森堡不确定性原理所禁止的。
零点能的存在究竟揭示了什么深层本质？这最终取决于你采用何种量子力学诠释。唯一没有争议的表述是：如果将一群粒子置于最低能量状态并测量其位置或速度，你会观测到数值的分布展宽。尽管能量已被抽空，这些粒子看起来却仍在微微颤动。在某些量子力学诠释中，它们确实在运动；但在另一些诠释里，这种运动表象只是经典物理学遗留的误导性认知，我们无法通过直观方式描绘真实发生的图景。
零点能概念最早由马克斯·普朗克于1911年提出。罗切斯特大学研究量子真空的理论物理学家彼得·米隆尼指出："我认为是爱因斯坦首次严肃对待这个概念。"爱因斯坦等学者借助零点能解释了诸多现象：分子和晶格即使在最低能量态仍存在的细微振动；液态氦在常规压力下即使降至极低温度（本应使原子固定）也无法凝固成固体。
2025年，汉堡附近欧洲X射线自由电子激光装置等机构的研究人员发表了一项新例证。他们将含11个原子的有机分子碘吡啶冷却至接近绝对零度，再用激光脉冲轰击以破坏其原子键。团队发现解离原子的运动存在关联性，表明该分子在冷冻状态下仍在振动。该装置实验物理学家丽贝卡·博尔表示："这原本并非实验的主要目标，而是我们在研究中偶然发现的。"
关于场中零点能最著名的效应由亨德里克·卡西米尔于1948年预言，1958年初现端倪，1997年获得明确观测。两块不带电材料板（卡西米尔设想为平行金属板，其他形状与材质亦可实现）会相互施加作用力。卡西米尔指出这些板会像电磁场的铡刀，通过截断长波振荡改变零点能分布。最广为接受的解释是：从某种意义上看，板外侧能量高于板间能量，这种差异会产生使两板相互靠近的吸引力。
量子场论学者通常将场描述为振荡器的集合，每个振荡器都有自身的零点能。场中包含无限个振荡器，因此场应蕴含无限的零点能。当物理学家在20世纪30至40年代意识到这点时，最初曾质疑该理论，但很快便接受了这种无限性。在物理学（至少大部分领域）中，能量差才是真正关键的因素，通过谨慎处理，物理学家可以从一个无限值中减去另一个无限值以观察剩余效应。
然而这种方法对引力失效。早在1946年，沃尔夫冈·泡利就意识到：无限或至少巨量的零点能会产生足以引爆宇宙的引力场。约翰斯·霍普金斯大学物理学家肖恩·卡罗尔指出："所有形式的能量都会产生引力，真空能量也不例外，因此无法被忽视。"为何这种能量未在引力层面显现威力，至今仍是物理学家未解的谜题。
在量子物理学中，真空零点能不仅是个持续存在的难题，也不仅仅是盒子无法被真正清空的原因。它并非"本应空无一物却存在某物"，而是"蕴含着演化万有潜能的虚无"。
米隆尼阐释道："真空的精妙之处在于，每个场——进而每种粒子——都以某种形式存在于其中。"即使不存在任何电子，真空仍蕴含着"电子性"。真空零点能是所有可能物质形态（包括尚未发现的形态）共同作用的结果。
英文来源：
In Quantum Mechanics, Nothingness Is the Potential To Be Anything
Introduction
Suppose you want to empty a box. Really, truly empty it. You remove all its visible contents, pump out any gases, and — applying some science-fiction technology — evacuate any unseeable material such as dark matter. According to quantum mechanics, what’s left inside?
It sounds like a trick question. And in quantum mechanics, you know to expect a trick answer. Not only is the box still filled with energy, but all your efforts to empty it have barely put a dent in the amount.
This unavoidable residue is known as ground-state energy, or zero-point energy. It comes in two basic forms: The one in the box is associated with fields, such as the electromagnetic field, and the other is associated with discrete objects, such as atoms and molecules. You may dampen a field’s vibrations, but you cannot eliminate every trace of its presence. And atoms and molecules retain energy even if they’re cooled arbitrarily close to absolute zero. In both cases, the underlying physics is the same.
Zero-point energy is characteristic of any material structure or object that is at least partly confined, such as an atom held by electric fields in a molecule. The situation is like that of a ball that has settled at the bottom of a valley. The total energy of the ball consists of its potential energy (related to position) plus its kinetic energy (related to motion). To zero out both components, you would have to give a precise value to both the object’s position and its velocity, something forbidden by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
What the existence of zero-point energy tells you at a deeper level depends ultimately on which interpretation of quantum mechanics you adopt. The only noncontentious thing you can say is that, if you situate a bunch of particles in their lowest energy state and measure their positions or velocities, you will observe a spread of values. Despite being drained of energy, the particles will look as if they’ve been jiggling. In some interpretations of quantum mechanics, they really have been. But in others, the appearance of motion is a misleading holdover from classical physics, and there is no intuitive way to picture what’s happening.
Zero-point energy was first introduced by Max Planck in 1911. After that, “it was Einstein, I think, who took it seriously for the first time,” said Peter Milonni of the University of Rochester, a theorist who studies the quantum vacuum. Einstein and others invoked zero-point energy to explain numerous phenomena, including the subtle vibrations of molecules and crystal lattices, even in their lowest energy states, and the failure of liquid helium to condense into a solid at ordinary pressure, even at temperatures so low you would expect atoms to lock in place.
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A recent example was published in 2025 by researchers at the European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser Facility near Hamburg, among other institutions. They cooled iodopyridine, an organic molecule consisting of 11 atoms, almost to absolute zero and hammered it with a laser pulse to break its atomic bonds. The team found that the motions of the freed atoms were correlated, indicating that, despite its chilled state, the iodopyridine molecule had been vibrating. “That was not initially the main goal of the experiment,” said Rebecca Boll, an experimental physicist at the facility. “It’s basically something that we found.”
Perhaps the best-known effect of zero-point energy in a field was predicted by Hendrick Casimir in 1948, glimpsed in 1958, and definitively observed in 1997. Two plates of electrically uncharged material — which Casimir envisioned as parallel metal sheets, although other shapes and substances will do — exert a force on each other. Casimir said the plates would act as a kind of guillotine for the electromagnetic field, chopping off long-wavelength oscillations in a way that would skew the zero-point energy. According to the most accepted explanation, in some sense, the energy outside the plates is higher than the energy between the plates, a difference that pulls the plates together.
Quantum field theorists typically describe fields as a collection of oscillators, each of which has its own zero-point energy. There is an infinite number of oscillators in a field, and thus a field should contain an infinite amount of zero-point energy. When physicists realized this in the 1930s and ’40s, they at first doubted the theory, but they soon came to terms with the infinities. In physics — or most of physics, at any rate — energy differences are what really matters, and with care physicists can subtract one infinity from another to see what’s left.
That doesn’t work for gravity, though. As early as 1946, Wolfgang Pauli realized that an infinite or at least gargantuan amount of zero-point energy should create a gravitational field powerful enough to explode the universe. “All forms of energy gravitate,” said Sean Carroll, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University. “That includes the vacuum energy, so you can’t ignore it.” Why this energy remains gravitationally muted still mystifies physicists.
In quantum physics, the zero-point energy of the vacuum is more than an ongoing challenge, and it’s more than the reason you can’t ever truly empty a box. Instead of being something where there should be nothing, it is nothing infused with the potential to be anything.
“The interesting thing about the vacuum is every field, and therefore every particle, is somehow represented,” Milonni said. Even if not a single electron is present, the vacuum contains “electronness.” The zero-point energy of the vacuum is the combined effect of every possible form of matter, including ones we have yet to discover.