Zero-Point Field Theory

The Zero-Point Field Theory

The ZPE was introduced by Max Planck in 1911 and considered to be the lowest state of energy level that fills up the void of space. This primal state, however, is not empty, inert, and passive. In modern science, there is no such thing as “a state of absolute nothingness” for this nothingness is crawling with elements so small and emitting tiny vibrations or quantum fluctuations that they cannot be detected by our standard physical measurements (Ray Fleming, 2012).

Albert Einstein shared in coining the term “zero-point energy.” In his view, in the beginning was energy, manifesting itself in different forms like heat, kinetic, potential, nuclear, chemical, mass, and electromagnetic energy; and,and then, this energy transformed itself into matter. What gives this energy its form is important for, as physicists maintain, without this “something,” there would not have been any stars, planets, life, and humans existing today.

Quantum physicists describe the ultimate reality as a filament of vibrating energy often represented as a string. It is this primal element that animates and sets everything in motion. Undetectable by our ordinary physical senses, it is the subtlest state of existence, the realm of the invisible. Some scientists describe this primal state as one of Oneness since, according to them, at this initial state there is no distinction and differentiation. It is probably because of this that others refer to this state as the “Unified Field.”

There are some parallelisms between the ZPE field theory and the Divine Field Theory (DFT). I use DFT to refer to the ancient creation stories about how the Cosmos started. These stories are handed down to us in the form of myths, legends, symbols, imagery, and metaphors. They implicate the existence of supernatural beings—gods and goddesses—who created everything and continue to intervene in the operations of the Cosmos.

The earliest known texts that document the history of the Cosmos can be traced in ancient Mesopotamia, particularly, in the cities of Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, and Assyria. Their records narrate the genealogies of the gods and goddesses, the beginnings of life, and the appearance of humanity, codified and sculpted in clay tablets.

First dated to be written in 8,500 B.C., they are acknowledged to be much older by at least a thousand years than the Hebrew Bible’s Book of Genesis. Many scholars now agree that what was written about the Cosmos in these ancient texts influenced ancient civilizations in Greece, India, Egypt, and Rome, including those of our modern times.

Ancient religions and beliefs about the primal order of the Cosmos are clear and straightforward. The primal state was one of disorder and chaos that has the potential to manifest itself in several forms. At first there was nothing, no form, only the void and darkness, but it was not inert only because the Spirit of the Lord hovered over it, holding back its potential to manifest. In the biblical account, for example, the Book of Genesis speaks of water that represented chaos, nothingness, and darkness:

In the beginning, when God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth had no form and was void; darkness was over the deep and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.

The Chinese sage Lao Tsu portrayed the creation of our Cosmos as a confused spiral of primal elements depicted as an egg. Inside this egg were the two opposites, namely, the yin, representing darkness, passivity, and weakness” and the yang, representing “brightness, activity, and strength” (Hua-Ching Ni, 2003:14). This description is also reflected in the many writings of great philosophers several centuries later. For example, the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso or Ovid spoke of the same chaotic and confused state of the Cosmos (Gleiser, 1997:14-15):

Before the creation of the earth and ocean and sky,

Alike was the face of nature in all here course,

One indistinct chaos: a rough, disorderly mass

Of inharmonious atoms confusedly mixed

And lacking in all but lifeless and motionless weight.

As yet no luminous sun enlightened the world.

At this original state, there were no forms, no subject and object. There was only oneness. As the Chinese sage Lao Tsu  (Hua-Ching Ni, 2003:79) expressed it:

When the subtle Way of the universe is all pervading, there is no longer any distinction between subject and object, between spiritual and material, between holy and unholy. All energies merge into harmonious Oneness.

Sudhakar S. Dishit (1989) expressed this ancient belief of oneness in diversity in the primal state as:

… the source of the entire cosmos and all cosmic activities relating to the emergence, existence and dissolution of the terrestrial phenomena that form the cosmic rhythm. And this ultimate reality is One absolute and indeterminable.

In summary, the ZPE field theory speaks of a state of existence that began even before the singularity erupted into a fiery Big Bang. It speaks of a state before the beginning of time, space, and matter.

Our ancient ancestors symbolized this state nothingness as water over which the Spirit of the Lord hovered or the egg inside which are the two opposites, the yin and the yang.