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The Casimir force

Feeling the heat

Nature Physics volume 7, pages 190–191 (2011)Cite this article

A thermal Casimir force — an attraction between two metal surfaces caused by thermal, rather than quantum, fluctuations in the electromagnetic field — is now identified experimentally, with implications for our understanding of electrodynamics.

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Figure 1: Theoretical prediction for the Casimir force, F, (with the TE zero-frequency mode excluded) per area multiplied by the fourth power of the plate separation a, for T = 300 K, as a function of a.

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  1. Kimball Milton is in the Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019, USA.,

    Kimball Milton

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  1. Kimball Milton
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Correspondence to Kimball Milton.

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Milton, K. Feeling the heat. Nature Phys 7, 190–191 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1931

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