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Many people think that space is empty.

But is it?

In this episode, we explore the fullness of space

and what it means to our understanding of physics

and the universe.

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What is space?

Really when we think about it, space is everywhere, as we saw.

Atoms are mostly made out of space.

And the little jiggle that we call the material world

is just an electrostatic field that's

interacting with each other and makes it seem solid.

So basically, we have less solid and more solid space.

When we talk about vacuum fluctuation in physics,

people have a tendency to think we're talking about a chamber

that we pull all the air out and it's got a vacuum in there.

That's not what we're talking about.

We're talking about the energy in the space, right?

The vacuum fluctuation is the energy

that would still be there if you remove all the molecules

in a vacuum chamber.

And so it's something that's already there.

And it's not something that occurs only

in a certain condition or in a certain region

or under certain vacuum condition.

But it's basically the jiggle of space

everywhere, whether we're talking

about space like intergalactic space or interstellar space

or if we're talking about space at the molecular structure

like the space between atoms, the space inside the atom,

the space inside particles.

All this space jiggle with electromagnetic fluctuation.

And these vacuum fluctuations appear in many different ways

in physics.

When Paul Dirac wrote the equations for quantum field

theory, it appeared that these fluctuations were popping

particles in and out of our reality continuously.

This was described as the Dirac Sea,

a sea of energetic particle popping in and out

of our reality continuously.

And so they were deemed to be virtual

just because they're not in existence

in our experience for a very long time.

That doesn't mean they're not there.

The word virtual particles, here,

does not mean that they're not real particles.

It just means that they're only there

for a very short amount of time.

And so these fluctuations are essential to our equation

in quantum theory.

Many of the subatomic particles are

thought to emerge from these fluctuations.

And this fluctuation of the vacuum

actually is the basis from which, for instance, Higgs

was able to write his equation for the Higgs-Boson

and for the Higgs Interaction, the Higgs Field,

which was thought to be the basis of mass,

or the emergence of mass.

So it really is omnipresent in quantum field theory,

in quantum theory.

And it is, as well, becoming more and more

utilized in our physics all over the place,

including at the cosmological level when

we look at the surface of black holes and their dynamics.

So it's really interesting that, for the first time as well,

we were able to observe the fluctuations of the vacuum

at the cosmological level near the surface of a neutron star.

It seems a little strange to think that particles can come

from nothing, from the vacuum.

The thing is is that the vacuum is not nothing.

In fact, we are not able to find anywhere in the universe

where there is nothing.

There is always electromagnetic fluctuation.

And this field, the quantum fluctuation

of the vacuum at the quantum scale,

has been deemed, as well, zero point energy,

because even at 0 Kelvin, these equations show that there

would still be fluctuation.

There's nowhere where we can stop the vacuum

from being the vacuum.

This is very significant because it means that it's everywhere.

And it's fluctuating.

That means it has energy everywhere.

And this energy is non-trivial.

It's a lot of energy.

When we look at the energy that we require

to relate the energy of mass, gravity,

the dynamic of our universe, the creation of our universe,

and so on, then all of a sudden we

realize that there is a source of energy that's already

present that we call vacuum fluctuation,

and that that source could be the source of everything.

This means that there is nothing either than the vacuum,

meaning that the vacuum fluctuations, when they become

coherent, are able to produce what

we call as our material world.

Now, we will discuss that in more details.

But these vacuum fluctuations, although

their earlier interpretation was thought

to be completely random, we're discovering that they may not

be random, that they may be polarized and organized

in certain ways that when they do become organized,

they produce what we call matter.

And as matter get together, then the organization

of this information field, if you'd like,

could become something that we understand

as the source of what we call awareness or consciousness.

So there's lots of implication to understanding these vacuum

fluctuations, how they work, what's their energy level,

and very importantly as we describe, with the Casimir

effect.

If enough of a gradient can be created in the structure

of the vacuum, we can get the vacuum to produce work for us

as it moves through the gradient.

When vacuum fluctuations push or pump the Casimir plates

back and forth, we can theoretically

extract energy in what is called the Casimir effect.

Consider that if this is the energy that

is producing all of our reality, then the amount of energy

we can extract is enormous.

Now, it's important to realize when we're talking

about the vacuum, and we're talking about these vacuum

fluctuations, we're not just talking about vacuum out there

or vacuum inside atoms.

We're talking about vacuum inside of you.

You're made out of molecules.

You're made out of atoms.

And so the space inside of you, which is 99.9999% percent you,

is fluctuating as well.

And this is a motion that you may think as stochastic.

And certainly, that's the way it's

been thought of, meaning that it is random,

it has no organization.

And that's why, in general, it has been ignored, because it's

thought to be irrelevant since it all cancels out

to the random function of it.

In fact, science is discovering that there are

regions of space that are stochastic,

or have random probability distribution or pattern that

may be analyzed statistically, but may not be predicted

precisely.

This is where the material cannot be seen.

But it is observed that those regions are organized.

And that is where matter emerges.

This might be, as well, the source of black holes.

And matter might just be smaller black holes coming out

of bigger black holes, and so on.

And so there is a whole new understanding

of physics that emerge from realizing that these vacuum

fluctuations that you're made of may

be the source of this material world

and the energy of the material world that is equal to mass,

or the structure of reality.

Although we think of these fluctuations as random,

randomness may only be an artifact of the sample

that you're looking at.

Let me give you an example.

If you put your nose into a Persian rug,

you're going to see particles of dust.

And you're going to see fibers of the wool

that the carpet is made of.

And you might see a few different colors

of these other fibers being there, and then grains of sand

because the carpet is not perfectly clean, and dust,

and all this.

You might look at all this, looked like a complete mess.

And you might not be able to see a pattern at all.

And most likely, you won't.

If you're looking close, you will not see a pattern.

But then as soon as you back up and you

start getting more and more of the field of vision,

then you start to see patterns.

You start to see that there's beautiful design of this rug.

You see the colors actually working together

to produce this amazing design.

So when we look at the universe or we

look at large portion of space, we

might think that it all looks random.

But actually, if we looked big enough,

we might actually find order in something

as large as a universe.

We've started to see something like that.

We start to see large structure on the cosmological scales

when we look at super clusters.

We see organization where they start

to look like they're organizing as huge octahedron, tetrahedron

in the space, like a crystal.

And we see organization, certainly,

at the molecular level.

What we're discovering is that when

the structure of the vacuum itself is organized,

it produces effects that we see as our reality.

And that is very profound because we

realize that all of reality is part of one thing that

is organized by the structure of spin, by angular momentum,

by the geometry of the field.

Imagine that you tried to define space.

And you find that OK, well you can always

divide to smaller and smaller and smaller space.

You would never reach the end.

You can divide one in half, and then in quarters, and then

in eighths, and so on and so on and so on and so on.

You will never arrive at the end.

If there is energy there, then it has an infinite potential.

Clearly, this could be a source of energy

with infinite potential for humanity, a source of energy

that would give us something that could be thought

of as gravity control.

There's all kinds of application in realizing

that we are all bathing in this infinite,

or very close to infinite, level of energy

that we call the vacuum.

We're discovering that this vacuum energy is everywhere,

and that it's producing everything.

And so we are starting to think maybe

we can become vacuum engineers.

We can engineer the vacuum together

to do a little bit of what we want it to do.

And if we are successful at this,

the implications are amazing.

On an everyday level, what you should take away

from this episode is that you are

bathing in a field of energy.

Our body is made of that field of energy.

It's called atoms, molecules, or cells.

This field of energy is flowing in and out of the human body

continuously.

When it flows out of you, you call it thermodynamics.

You call it the heat of your body and so on.

When it's flowing into you, maybe you

call it thoughts and the energy that

propels you throughout the day.

Becoming aware of this energy, becoming

aware of this source of reality, allows you to maybe start

to manipulate it or start to interact with it in such a way

that you feel more energized, you feel more aligned,

you feel more empathy for the rest

of the things in the space.

You start to feel nature.

You start to feel one with the structure of space

instead of feeling isolated and separated.

You feel unified with the universe.

And that might bring you a sense of comfort,

a sense of connection that can lead you

to incredible discoveries and a sense of wellness that could

be transformative in your life.

So this is really what I wanted to convey

in these first few episodes, is that this is real.

It's been measured.

It's there.

We know it's there.

And it's rapidly arriving to a place

where myself and many other scientists are realizing, wow.

This could be the source of everything.

And we're finally getting there.

And we can start to interact with it

in a completely different way.

The separation we experience is really an illusion.

Like for instance right now, we are

interacting with the background radiation of the galaxy.

We might not be aware of it.

But we are, because it's in the space.

We're interacting with all the electromagnetic fields

and so on.

There's all kinds of levels of interaction

that we're not directly conscious of, including

more gross ones like the fact that we're breathing

and our heart is beating and our liver is doing its thing,

kidneys are doing--

there's all kinds of things happening that we're not

consciously manipulating.

They're still happening.

And so we are discovering that we

are profoundly deeper and more complex

than initially we might interpret ourself.

And that depth and complexity emerge

not from some philosophical ideas,

but actually from, literally, the mechanics of how

the physical world emerge.

There is a concept that is common amongst truth seekers

or people on the spiritual path that there are spiritual things

and there are material things.

That, as well, is a concept of separation, fragmentation,

and isolation.

Is it possible that what we call the spiritual world may just

be the physics that we have yet to understand

about the physical world, which includes the information flows

that we call consciousness or awareness?

It's kind of a funny thing when we say I,

because if this is all true and the space is full and it has

infinite division possibility, then everything has infinity

in it.

And saying I is a little bit confusing because when

you say I am who I am or I am one, which I do you mean?

Do you mean you meaning all of your cells?

Do you mean you meaning all of your atoms

and then all of your cells?

Do you mean you meaning all of your protons,

and so on and so on and so on?

You can't really find the end of I or the beginning of I

because you can divide to infinity.

And to think of yourself as a being with infinite potential

might be a more accurate understanding of yourself.

Then, to think of yourself as just this agglomeration

of cells that happened to come together a few years ago

and that will come apart in the next few years

may not be an accurate description

of who you are in relationship to the universe as a whole.

At the deepest level, who are you?

Well, maybe you are the whole individualized into you.

And so when you say I, you're only

describing one scale of you.

There might be whole other levels of scales of you

that you're not aware of because we haven't understood

this level of depth of reality that we are discovering now.

And that depth and complexity emerge

not from some philosophical ideas,

but actually from literally the mechanics of how

the physical world emerge.

The idea that there is spiritual things

and there's material things is, as well,

a concept of separation and fragmentation and isolation.

In fact, what we call the spiritual world in these views

may just be the physics that we hadn't understood,

the dynamics of the physical world

which includes the information flow

that we call consciousness or awareness.

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