Quantum mechanics Quote by Henning Genz

““INTO AND OUT OF THE VACUUM To make real particles out of the virtual ones that are part of the vacuum fluctuations, the only thing needed is energy. But the energy inherent in the vacuum is inaccessible; it would have to be extracted from the vacuum, and that is impossible, because the vacuum is already the state of lowest energy. When an electron and a positron collide in the interaction region of the detector, the ensuing final-state volume is overall electrically neutral; in this sense, it is a vacuum. The uncertainty relation keeps us from knowing the precise locations of the particles along with their velocities; our probability of finding them is distributed through a certain spatial volume. If electrons and positrons were classical particles, they could obviously not annihilate each other; no provision at all is made in classical physics for processes of this kind. Quantum mechanics, however, permits us to look at them at though they were both a particle and a hole . When the particle drops into the hole- a process that is very likely under the circumstances-the sum of their motion energy and mass energy will be freed.””

— Henning Genz