The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Suppose you want to empty a box. Really, truly empty it. You remove all its visible contents, pump out any gases, and—applying some ...

Try as they might, scientists can’t truly rid a space or an object of its energy. But what “zero-point energy” really means is up for interpretation. Suppose you want to empty a box. Really, truly ...

Zero-point energy sits at a strange crossroads between hard physics and science fiction, promising limitless power from the fabric of space itself. If it could be tapped in any practical way, it would ...