Conclusions and Discussion

It is generally known that in the universe, there are many more photons than fermions. The baryon/photon ratio as provided by the Standard Model is approximately 10^-9, although Olive, Steigman, and Skillman [5] have argued that it is approximately 10^-10.  Since, as generally accepted, the universe must have an almost equal number of positive and negative charges in order to maintain its own stability (as known, a slightly unbalanced charge ratio would make the universe collapse), it is legitimate to compare the lepton number directly with the baryon number, since both are equivalent.

In this sense, the QV-lepton/photon ratio (3) is about 12 orders of magnitude lower than the value of the baryon/photon ratio in the Standard Model, demonstrating that in QV, the proportion of photons with respect to matter is much higher than in space-time (there have been found no neutral particles in QV that could alter this fact). The fact that charges are much less frequent in QV than in space-time with respect to photons, demonstrates that at least in principle, the “real” universe (space-time) and the “virtual” QV are two different spaces.

Since the parameters m_q,P and m_P used in (3) represent, respectively, leptons/gamma particles and QV-radiation, and QV-radiation has its mean approximately at the level of such gamma particles (10²⁰-10²² Hz is approximately the mean of the whole EM QV-spectrum up to the Planck frequency, 1.855 x 10⁴³ Hz), the ratio (3) is perfectly comparable to that of the Standard Model.  And even if the ratio (3) should change slightly, this would have no effect because of the enormous difference observed (about 12 orders of magnitude).

The apparently trivial question of why the QV is ‘virtual’, appears to be extremely important if we consider that “at the 53 GHz-frequency middle band of the COBE Differential Microwave Radiometer, the ZPF/Cosmic Microwave Background ratio would be 0.77. Even more dramatically, in the optical spectrum, eqn. 2 (EM-blackbody spectrum including ZPF) predicts, that the ZPF should be about two orders of magnitude brighter than the Sun”, as argued in [6].

The generally accepted explanation of why the QV is a virtual space, is that our universe is built upon QV-energy, such that we are not able to detect it, because any detector would have to be made out of that energy.  Some known visible effects produced by the QV are so-called “van der Waal’s forces”, which are microscopic and act even near absolute zero (0º Kelvin); as well as adherence of crude Bose-Einstein condensate, and the macroscopic Casimir force between dielectric or conducting plates [6], [7]. But even so, the main question remains, “where exactly are ZPR (vacuum radiation) and virtual pairs located?”  If they were located in 4-D space-time, we should be able to detect them directly, even if we and our devices were made of such energy.

Planck units do focus this problem. In fact, a Planck mass can be considered, per definition, as a certain natural QV-mass confined within a Planck volume and allows for the calculation of a QV-mass density equivalent of about 10⁹⁷ kg/m³ as mentioned in [1], [2], und [3].If we divide m_P (2.177x10^-8 kg) by the mass of an electron (9.110x10^-31kg), we get the corresponding concentration of 2.390x10²² leptons (electrons and positrons) per V_P (Planck volume).  Even in the case of much heavier or more energetic particles (baryons, gamma-particles, etc.), we always get a concentration of particles that infringes on the principle that a Planck volume cannot contain more than one single particle in 4-D (dimensional) space-time, since it is per definition, the smallest possible volume that can exist in space-time.