In one minute

Kardar and Golestanian review forces born of fluctuations, starting from the static Casimir attraction between two conducting plates caused by quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field between them. Thermal fluctuations in correlated fluids such as superfluids, liquid crystals and electrolytes are likewise changed by boundaries, producing forces that shape wetting and layering. A path integral formalism handles boundaries of any shape and opens the dynamic Casimir effect of moving boundaries. The electromagnetic vacuum then acts like a complex fluid that alters how objects move through it. A plate's effective mass depends on its shape and becomes anisotropic, and its motion is damped by photon emission.

The 'friction' of vacuum, and other fluctuation-induced forces