Text: I didnšt quite understand the principle of zero-point energy on the show. Can you please give me a simple explanation of the basic theory or point me the direction where I could read about it on the web or a recent publication? Hal Puthoff answers: A very readable summary can be found in Scientific American itself, in an article by Prof. Timothy Boyer in the August 1985 issue, entitled "The Classical Vacuum." As to the origin of the term "zero-point energy," it simply means that for any vibration (acoustic, electromagnetic, etc.) there remains, even at a temperature of absolute zero, a small residual energy that has its roots in the quantum uncertainty principle, a nonvanishing "quantum jiggle," as it were. In the context of the program, the possibility of an enormous reservoir of zero-point energy in space (the vacuum) associated with electromagnetic fields derives from the fact that although the residual energy at any given frequency is quite small (at the level of the uncertainty principle), there are contributions to the overall energy density from waves of all frequencies, propagating in all directions, and the sum of all these contributions is calculated to be quite large.

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