Question

By far the most accepted evidence of the reality of the zpf is the Casimir effect, that is, the force between two parallel neutral metallic plates resulting from the modification of the field by the bound. - Cetto et al, The Emerging Quantum (2015).

As mentioned..., today it is well accepted that the fluctuations of the electromagnetic vacuum are responsible for important observable physical phenomena. Perhaps their best known manifestations, within the atomic domain, are the Lamb shift of energy levels... and their contribution to the spontaneous transitions of the excited states to the ground state - Cetto et al, The Emerging Quantum (2015).

To recall, the governing equation of stochastic electrodynamics is
x¨=f(x) + mτx... + eE(x,t) + e/c v × B(x,t),
where f is an external force, the second term mτx...
describes the self-radiation force, and importantly the last two terms describe the Lorentz force due to the fluctuating zero point field (zpf) referenced in the quote. From the equation the Schrodringer equation can be derived after many approximations as shown in the book emerging quantum, I am not sure if the theory can be extended to relativistic regimes.

As is evident from the quote, the Casimir effect and lamb shift has been taken to validate SED in some sort of mechanistic sense, and even in wikipedia the SED based explanation of Casimir effect is considered uncontroversial. However, there have been papers such as 1 (and others) arguing that the Casimir effect is just the van der Waals force, and moreover the standard textbook calculation is carried out hastly. In the light of these developments, how valid are the quotes by Cetto et al. (2015) in Emerging Quantum?

Answer 1

The validity of quotes from Cetto et al. about SED and ZPF, evidenced by the Casimir effect and Lamb shift, is subject to scientific debate. The electroweak theory's predictions of W and Z bosons, unified at high energies, is well-supported by experimental data, including the discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN.

Step-by-step explanation:

The quotes from Cetto et al. (2015) in The Emerging Quantum are related to Stochastic Electrodynamics (SED) and the Zero Point Field (ZPF), particularly about the Casimir effect and the Lamb shift. SED suggests that ZPF is responsible for observable physical phenomena, and the Casimir effect is often cited as evidence for ZPF because it involves a measurable force between neutral metallic plates that cannot be accounted for by classical electrodynamics alone.

However, there is a debate within the scientific community regarding the nature of the Casimir effect, with some interpreting it as a manifestation of the van der Waals force and contesting the standard calculations. Meanwhile, the unification of forces has been a major theme in physics, as exemplified by the electroweak theory, which successfully predicted the existence and masses of the W and Z bosons, later confirmed by experiments at CERN. Electroweak theory illustrates how forces that seem distinct at low energies can be unified at higher energy scales, a concept further supported by the discovery of the Higgs boson.