Posted by rpcman on February 11, 1999 at 17:07:29:
Previously, Carlos had brought up zero point physics. When I subsequently mentioned that I was going to be reading Nothingness he asked that I report back on what Genz had to say on the topic of zero point fields.
As I think I state in my review of Nothingness it is unfortunate that Genz doesn't go into the faster than light travel aspect. In fact, he asserts in several places that faster than light travel is still not theoretically possible. Whether he makes this claim out of ignorance of some of the possible recent findings or because he finds these theories implausible isn't possible to tell from the text of Nothingness.
What he does say about zero-point energy is very interesting though. You can take a volume of space, remove everything possible out of it, and then freeze it to degrees approaching absolute zero so that most of the background radiation gets zapped too and still there is something in that space. Energy and particle creation can still exist in such a realm. For all the details check out Genz's book--especially pages 199-202. Very interesting stuff.