A Beginner's Guide to Quantum Tunneling: Breaking Through the Walls of Classical Physics
A Beginner's Guide to Quantum Tunneling: Breaking Through the Walls of Classical Physics Imagine a hill in front of you with the top of the hill having potential energy Y for mass M. Now push a ball with mass M using X kinetic energy. If the X<Y: The ball ends up on the other side of the hill. If X>Y: The ball rolls up and comes back. If X=Y: The ball rolls up and stays stationary. This was the classical physics result. In fact, if we throw a particle at a potential barrier and even if it doesn't have enough kinetic energy it can sometimes end up on the other side. This is known as Quantum Tunneling. The probability wave approaching two barriers. As the wave collides with the first barrier we see a small chance of the particle being inside the potential barrier. During the collision we see a small chance of it being on the other side of the potential barrier. This is known as quantum tunneling. At time 0.000114 we see a high probability of quantum tunneling. This will sl...
