Quantum Tunnels Show How Particles Can Break Light Speed
N. Wolchover, Quant
No sooner had the radical equations of quantum mechanics been discovered than physicists identified one of the strangest phenomena the theory allows.Quantum tunneling shows how profoundly particles such as electrons differ from bigger things. Throw a ball at the wall and it bounces backward; let it roll to the bottom of a valley and it stays there. But a particle will occasionally hop through the wall.
No sooner had the radical equations of quantum mechanics been discovered than physicists identified one of the strangest phenomena the theory allows.Quantum tunneling shows how profoundly particles such as electrons differ from bigger things. Throw a ball at the wall and it bounces backward; let it roll to the bottom of a valley and it stays there. But a particle will occasionally hop through the wall.