Past exam of the physics course of the year 4 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2014 / Paper 1 / A6 / Solution

Zero-point energy is the ground-state energy above the classical minimum, remaining even at zero temperature. For a harmonic oscillator it is $\hslash \omega /2$; simultaneous vanishing position and momentum fluctuations is forbidden by the uncertainty principle.

A concrete test is the Casimir interaction: changing conducting boundaries changes electromagnetic ground-state modes and produces a measurable force. Ideal parallel plates have pressureA torsion-pendulum experiment measured the attraction of closely spaced conducting surfaces, testing this boundary-dependent interaction.^[ref] Such measurements test changes in ground-state energy, not an arbitrary absolute additive vacuum energy; real-material and thermal corrections must be included when comparing precision data.