The critical casimir effect universal fluctuation-induced forces at work

It is well known that nothing comes from nothing. In physics, however, this is not always the case. Surprisingly indeed, two electrically neutral conducting metallic plates placed in vacuum about half a micrometer apart attract each other, even at zero temperature, due to a force which was theoretically predicted in 1948 by the Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir [1]. This force originates from the quantum mechanical fluctuations of the electromagnetic field in vacuum -so, apparently, from nothing.