The hidden vibrancy of a vacuum
Published: 17 Apr. 2025, 00:05
Ko Jae-hyun
The author is a professor at the School of Semiconductor and Display Engineering, Hallym University.
There are times when the distance between scientific language and everyday expression becomes especially clear. Earlier this month, when the police announced they would create a “vacuum” around the Constitutional Court ahead of a historic ruling, the metaphor gave me pause. Though intended to evoke security and neutrality, the term carried a different weight for me, shaped by years of studying physical vacuums in laboratory settings. It wasn’t the accuracy of the metaphor that troubled me, but rather what it left unsaid.
![Police buses block the roads leading to the Anguk Station intersection, which lies just south of the Constitutional Court in Jongno District, central Seoul, on April 3. [YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/04/17/fe953d5f-5ee3-45e4-a77c-8a04434b5056.jpg)
In science, a vacuum is never truly empty. Even in highly controlled laboratory conditions, where we use vacuum pumps to reduce the pressure inside sealed chambers to one-billionth of atmospheric pressure, a sugar cube-sized volume still contains tens of billions of air molecules. We call this a “high vacuum,” but to approach a truly empty space, one would have to travel far beyond Earth — into the deep voids of interstellar space.
Yet, even there, emptiness is an illusion. Ancient philosophers imagined the vacuum as a space of nothingness — a still, inert absence between particles. But modern quantum physics tells a different story. In the realm of quantum mechanics, a vacuum is not an empty void but a dynamic field alive with potential. Temporary fluctuations of energy, permitted by the uncertainty principle, allow particles to flicker into and out of existence. These quantum fluctuations give the vacuum a kind of restless vitality, a stage for possibility rather than absence.
Recent experimental work has begun to show that these fluctuations may have measurable, physical consequences. What was once thought to be the realm of theory is gradually proving to be a space with structure and substance. The vacuum, it seems, is no longer a backdrop — it is part of the performance.
I thought about this on April 4, standing near the Constitutional Court, as rows of police buses and barriers cordoned off the surrounding area. The scene was quiet, tense and eerily still — much like a vacuum appears from the outside. But perhaps, like a quantum field, the space was not silent at all. Beneath the surface, the hopes of citizens — those yearning for democratic restoration — were quietly stirring.
In physics, even the vacuum pulses with energy. Perhaps, this too was a moment where apparent stillness masked something deeply alive. It is in such tension, after all, that new beginnings often take shape.
Translated from the JoongAng Ilbo using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.
The author is a professor at the School of Semiconductor and Display Engineering, Hallym University.
There are times when the distance between scientific language and everyday expression becomes especially clear. Earlier this month, when the police announced they would create a “vacuum” around the Constitutional Court ahead of a historic ruling, the metaphor gave me pause. Though intended to evoke security and neutrality, the term carried a different weight for me, shaped by years of studying physical vacuums in laboratory settings. It wasn’t the accuracy of the metaphor that troubled me, but rather what it left unsaid.
Police buses block the roads leading to the Anguk Station intersection, which lies just south of the Constitutional Court in Jongno District, central Seoul, on April 3. [YONHAP]
In science, a vacuum is never truly empty. Even in highly controlled laboratory conditions, where we use vacuum pumps to reduce the pressure inside sealed chambers to one-billionth of atmospheric pressure, a sugar cube-sized volume still contains tens of billions of air molecules. We call this a “high vacuum,” but to approach a truly empty space, one would have to travel far beyond Earth — into the deep voids of interstellar space.
Yet, even there, emptiness is an illusion. Ancient philosophers imagined the vacuum as a space of nothingness — a still, inert absence between particles. But modern quantum physics tells a different story. In the realm of quantum mechanics, a vacuum is not an empty void but a dynamic field alive with potential. Temporary fluctuations of energy, permitted by the uncertainty principle, allow particles to flicker into and out of existence. These quantum fluctuations give the vacuum a kind of restless vitality, a stage for possibility rather than absence.
Recent experimental work has begun to show that these fluctuations may have measurable, physical consequences. What was once thought to be the realm of theory is gradually proving to be a space with structure and substance. The vacuum, it seems, is no longer a backdrop — it is part of the performance.
I thought about this on April 4, standing near the Constitutional Court, as rows of police buses and barriers cordoned off the surrounding area. The scene was quiet, tense and eerily still — much like a vacuum appears from the outside. But perhaps, like a quantum field, the space was not silent at all. Beneath the surface, the hopes of citizens — those yearning for democratic restoration — were quietly stirring.
In physics, even the vacuum pulses with energy. Perhaps, this too was a moment where apparent stillness masked something deeply alive. It is in such tension, after all, that new beginnings often take shape.
Translated from the JoongAng Ilbo using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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