Love this article and thank you so much for it. As you already know I am a science fiction writer. I’m very intrigued with hard science, even though my knowledge of it is limited to articles like this one, which explains many of the underlying principles in lay woman’s terms.
My first book explores how we might survive climate change using current science and technology, AI modification of humans to withstand a changed environment, and weather modification programs. We’re already using them and will expand this approach as things get worse, leading I surmise to weather wars when countries start pushing extreme weather events towards or away from one another.
Anyway in this article you’ve given me the way to explain to my friends and husband why I moved from climate change as a subject to ZPE in the next two books.
Part of my research has included following the work of Tom DeLonge and his rather intimidating ex-military colleagues.
I bet these craft US Navy pilots now report seeing to them are using anti-gravitation and ZPE. It’s the only explanation for now that we have of a very advanced technology we are observing visually, but do not yet fully understand.
DeLonge’s cohorts are concerned with the effect the techology these visitors possess and are using will have on our planetary defenses. A definite strategy to engage DARPA in the ZPE and anti-gravitation technology research effort. As you know a lot of very worthwhile research has come out of that department.
In his science fiction novels that accompany his non fiction books DeLonge describes what ZPE acts like, and hints that DARPA might know a bit about it. I actually really like his novels and I recommend them. Also he’d be an interesting guy to do a follow up interview with.
I now quote from your article below:
“Issues of cost, energy density, scaling and reliability will probably control ZPE’s use. Assuming they are very broad, and the figures of merit at least comparable to wind and solar, the world’s inhabitants could become not only carbon neutral but “naturally” (when married with APM) independent of any traditional supply chain. This, in turn, would completely reform societies, economics and the power balance between individuals and governments.”
In my books, because they’re fiction and I can use various genre’s to advance my plot including fantasy, a group of aliens give us this technology conditional on three things — we give up nuclear and we make ZPE available to everyone — also that we do not leave our solar system until we become more civilized. As one of my characters says: “The last thing that you need is technological information to increase the gap between your intellectual development and your almost non-existent social development. Carry on playing with your Mars probes for the moment, as half of your world’s population lives in poverty and hunger. The only information you need lies in the field of societal standards.”
And yes you bet in the books I make it clear that ZPE has the ability to reform post climate change societies, economics and the balance between individuals and governments.
I quote you again:
“Whether it’s for housing, manufacture, farming, lighting, cooking or maintaining comfort almost all economic decisions turn directly or otherwise with energy: Geopolitical power often rests with controlling access to energy and it’s been the basis for wars.
Zero Point Energy is one of those dreams that could help us along the path to becoming the people we hope we can one day be: true shepherds of our home planet as well as of our destiny.”
Yes that’s a subject I explore in the books. With unlimited access to ZPE can we indeed become the people we one day could be? Or alternatively does human nature preclude that? Like most novelists I’m using my characters to try and figure this one out. Stay tuned!
To the response below — yes imagine a world where Tesla’s inventions had been funded and implemented — I do in books two and three as well. One of my characters travels to a braneworld.
“In 1999, physicists Lisa Randall and Raman Sundry introduced a braneworld theory that received considerable attention. Under their theory, there can be other universes just a microscopic distance away from ours. But this distance “is measured in some fourth spatial dimension of which we are not aware.”
