ZERO POINT ENERGY
First proposed my Albert Einstein and Otto Stern in 1913, in physics, the zero-point energy is the lowest possible energy that a quantum mechanical physical system may have and is the energy of the ground state. The quantum mechanical system tht encapsulated this energy is the zero-point field.
Zero-point energy is sometimes used as a synonym for the vacuum energy, an amount of energy associated with the vacuum of empty space.
In cosmology, the vacuum energy is one possible explaination for the cosmological constant. The variation in zero-point energy as the boundries of a region of vacuum moves leads to the Casimir effect, which is observable in nanoscale devices.
A related term is zero-point field, which is the lowest energy state in a field; i.e., its ground state, which is non-zero.
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