The Casimir Effect as a Wormhole Source: Matching Density and the Total-Energy Shortfall

The Casimir energy density between conducting plates grows as the inverse fourth power of their separation. To match the 4.82e+42 joules per cubic metre that a one-metre wormhole throat requires, the plates must stand 3.08e-18 metres apart, well inside the scale of atoms, where the ideal-conductor formula has long ceased to describe any real material. At a buildable separation of one micrometre the density is 4.33e-04 joules per cubic metre. At the buildable separation of one micrometre, one cubic metre of Casimir volume holds so small a fraction of the throat's 1.21e+44 joule budget that the shortfall is 2.79e+47. The verdict is plain: the Casimir effect has the right sign and the wrong everything else, density at buildable scales and total energy at any scale. Computed, not measured.