Creating the physical world ex nihilo?
on the quantum vacuum and its fluctuations
pp. 51-97
in: Ernesto Carafoli, Gian Antonio Danieli, Giuseppe Longo (eds), The two cultures, Berlin, Springer, 2009Abstract
A vacuum is a volume of space that is essentially empty of matter, such that its gaseous pressure is much less than standard atmospheric pressure. The root of the word vacuum is the Latin adjective vacuus which means"empty," but space can never be perfectly empty [1, 2]. A perfect vacuum with a gaseous pressure of absolute zero is a philosophical concept that is never observed in practice, not least because quantum theory predicts that no volume of space can be perfectly empty in this way.