There are all sorts of contentions as to the implications, interpretations, and opinions of how exactly it is that quantum mechanics apply to observable reality. That being said, for a fledgling science it has amazing potentials.
The science itself is accepted. How it can, will and should be used is a completely different issue, because they all rely on the implications of the science, and those aren't all figured out yet.
As for pulling matter from nowhere, I would be curious to know if these are only paper calculations or if they are observable occurrences? Can you elaborate on this?
Of course. First, you have to understand that energy is the only way to affect matter. Be it other matter, or a force, energy is defined as the ability to change matter.
That being said, how do the protons in a nucleus stay together? They are all positive, so electrical forces should force them away from each other. There must be forces within the nucleus that keep them together. Those don't work via electrical and magnetic fields, so how do they work?
Well, we have these particles (or matter) that 'communicate' these forces to and from each proton. The force that these particles need to impart on the protons to keep them together is calculable, and that energy is the exact amount necessary for our new particles to have (otherwise our protons would be flying apart(less energy) or crushed together(more energy)).
So we have a particle that has the exact force to counter the electrical force one proton exerts on another, and in order for that particle to impart that force on the protons, it needs to travel from one proton to another. We also know that these particles travel at the speed of light. And, we know that matter and energy are equivalent (from e=m*c squared).
The last thing we need to take into account is the fact that the particles are traveling at the speed of light, so we must take relativity into account. When you do that, the energy calculation gains a delta t term (change in time) in the denominator. Because of that, you can pull energy from nothing as long as that energy exists for a very, very, very (10 to the negative 10+) short time. And that's okay because the size of the nucleus is very very small, and the particle is traveling very fast.
And yes, these particles have been observed in countless experiments in the particle accelerator in FermiLabs in Chicago and will be observed in the LHC when the tests start going.
And actually, quantum mechanics proved the existence of these particles before they were observed, and with pinpoint accuracy.
That's a lot, and I've only gotten the theory of this. I may be a little off on the details, but I know that this stuff has been proven, in the math itself as well as experiments.
The last I heard, Zero Point Energy still required a catalyst.
The catalyst, as far as I understand it, is simple quantum fluctuations. Also, I'm pretty sure that this is still a theory, one that relies on a flat universe, which has been only tentatively accepted by the scientific community.
