Welcome to Quantum Magazine's podcast.

Each episode we bring you stories about developments in science and mathematics.

I'm Susan Vallett.

For their latest magic trick, physicists have done the quantum equivalent of conjuring energy out of thin air. That's next.

Check out the Quantum Magazine podcast, The Joy of Why, hosted by mathematician Steve Strogetz.

The final episode of Season 2 explores why it's so important

in modern physics to understand

what a true vacuum is.

Available at quantum

magazine.org or wherever you

listen to podcasts. It's a feat that seems to fly in the face of physical law and common sense.

The idea that you can't extract energy from a vacuum, because there's nothing there to give.

But 15 years ago, Masahiro Hota,

a theoretical physicist at Tohoku University in Japan,

proposed that perhaps the vacuum could, in fact,

be coaxed into giving something up.

At first, many researchers ignored this work,

suspicious that pulling energy from the vacuum was

implausible at best. But those who took a closer look realized that Hota was suggesting a subtly

different quantum stunt. The energy wasn't free. It had to be unlocked using knowledge purchased

with energy in a far-off location. From this

perspective, Hoda's procedure looked less like creation and more like teleportation of energy

...