Ludwig-Maximilians University              32nd Arnold-Sommerfeld-Lectures                                January 13, 2026

The force of nothing:       

Attraction and Repulsion in the Quantum Void
  La Voix des airs   The Castle


Summary

I.      Casimir force:               EM wave  Heisenberg Uncertainty vaccuum fluctuations

                                            Casimir Blobs         Water wave

yellow ball High precision experimental confirmation with scanning probes:      

yellow ball MEM device applications require control of this force (stiction)                         

II.     Repulsion?

yellow ball Metamaterials, als invisibility cloaks:      The Pilgrim

yellow ball Geometry: 

III.   Earnshaw's theorem:       The Castle      

 red ball No levitation is possible with electrostatic interactions:  

red ball No levitation is possible with Casimir forces with dielectric composites: 

IV.  Heat radiation:

yellow ball Classical radiation pressure:                                 Hieronymus-Bosch,-The-Last-Judgement.-Central-Panel-with-Detail-of-Heaven

     yellow ball Non-classical (near field) counterpart                      

V.   Propulsive force:

     yellow ball Contactless heat engine:                          

VI.    Friction of vacuum::                leftarrow


Acknowledgments

Thosten Emig, Matthias Krüger, Noah Graham, Robert Jaffe

Jamal Rahi, Mohammad Maghrebi, Vlad Golyk, Dhruv Shah

M. Hertzberg, A. Scardicchio, A. Rodriguez, S. Johnson, U. Mohideen, R. Zandi