Owing to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the vacuum of quantum mechanics is a volatile sea
of ephemeral virtual particles that are the origin of some of the most important physical processes
in the universe. One such process, is the amplification of quantum vacuum fluctuations into
observable photons. This mechanism lies at the heart of the Unruh effect, Hawking radiation from a
black hole, and the dynamical Casimir effect. Although these mechanisms seem quite exotic, their
underlying physics is so easy even a child can understand. In this talk we will prove that the saying:
“Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten” applies equally well to physics by showing
that all quantum vacuum amplification mechanisms can be traced back to the same physics used to
amplify a playground swing; an effect known as parametric amplification. We will introduce the
Unruh effect, Hawking radiation, and the dynamical Casimir effect, and highlight their connection
to the quantum parametric amplifier. The unity underlying these mechanisms provides for
experimental realizations of otherwise unobservable effects, and gives insight into currently
unanswered theoretical questions such as the black hole information loss problem.