Understanding Quantum Mechanics #8: The Tunnel Effect

This is a fantastic presentation Sabine! I studied quantum mechanics as part of my physics undergraduate degree and I love how you are helping to de-mistify some of these concepts which are labelled as 'weird' by most people. Thanks for your contributions to scientific knowledge.

Is the barrier porous? could this be a harmonic effect? An effect of symmetry? is this a Newton's cradle?

Whatever happened to the tunnel diode? Negative resistance, a potential microwave oscillator, I guess it wasn't actually that useful.

Is there a calculable probability that I land in Singapore if jump over a chair here in Sirmium?

Quantum physics: make something sound so complicated that no one will know that you're full of crap.

DID ANYONE EVER SOLVE THAT FM TUNNEL EFFECT PROBLEM OR DID IT GO THE WAY OF HYPERIONISM FOR MOST

I think we need to more properly distinguish between "weird" and "inexplicable". Just because something seems "weird" doesn't mean it can't be explained or understood.

Again a wow-effect in clear and straight education, Sabine, though I knew already the most of this, it's a great enjoyment to listen to you. And of course, learned something new: what the 'Hamiltonian' is. To say thank you sounds lame, but you really bring enlightment in lifes.

Amazingly interesting and finally explained for normal person….

I think what move is the centre of mass. Which is slower than the wave functions without barrier.

Buenísima explicación, muy clara.

LOVE your videos

It's out of Tune... it needs another to be in tune, it takes a bit from the others passing..

Its faulty analogies all the way down. Its not an actual wall, just things like energy levels? Why can't it be communicated properly? I argue its not even hrd for anyone if the scientist presenting the layman's version actually understands what the math they do is.
Doesn't it annoy anyone that quantum physics is just hyped as mystic gobbledigook through ommission?

Maybe the world "particle" is the problem ... maybe there is no distribution of possibility of finding a particle ... maybe the distribution is all what it is ...and "particle" is just a visualization tool for the upright hairless monkeys not so much removed from the savannah as they may think they are ...

No you, no anyone can know the position. Mor Philosophy, less absurdities.

The one real-world example of quantum tunneling that stuck with me is that, charged electrons flowing in wires don't really have enough energy to overcome the gap between two wires twisted together, and only by quantum tunneling through the gap can electricity flow through a twist of wires. What do you think of that?

Is induction a form of quantum tunneling?

well done presentation, I think it's the interactions of the masses of energy distributed in space time

One way to understand quantum tunneling is to recognize that the wave-function does not literally predict the movement of an individual particle over time, it only predicts the probability of detecting "a" particle at any particular location each time you make a measurement. Since all such particles are identical and indistinguishable, it is only our assumption of continuous motion that leads us to conclude that all such measurements are of the "same" individual particle. In the case of quantum tunneling, the wave-function predicts there is a small probability that a particle will appear on the opposite side of the barrier, regardless of how we might imagine "it" manages to "tunnel through" the barrier.

That was wiKiD !

It never tunneled thru the wall. It Jumped over with a certain probability.

If I had had this videos back in the 90s... oh dear! Thank you so much for this Sabine!!!!

You get to the bottom line,like either a great investigator or highly skilled attorney,seems nothing gets by you. I believe the top physics people would be proud to have you in there ranks,like Planck,Einstein,Bohr,and the other 7 likely,you fit right in. Thanks

A great video Sabine. I'm a physicist, and I have never seen an illustration of the interaction of a particle with a potential wall (I've spent 40 years doing research in physical oceanography). I'd love to see how you did it, how you initialized the wave function, and gave it a shove toward the wall. Thanks again.

Looking at the Animation, does this mean (one particle case), that in case it is measured it has either tunneled or (xor) not? Looking at the wave function that transformed to dual peak, is the "headstart " dependent on the "thickness" of the wall/needed energy, or distribution/smearing when the w-function encountered the "wall"? Thanks

Holy moly, this is what my GCSE physics teacher was trying to explain! Now I get it... 20 years later 😝

Sabine this is great

I know nothing about dark matter but I hypothesize that the reason it doesn't interact with our reality is because it's two dimensional rather then our 3D experience.

A way its possible for me to visualize this is: say you are taking a measurement of a single particle, yet that single particle no matter how hard you try to slow it down, it still oscelates or vibrates in space in time. So anytime you make a measurement, its like taking a single stop motion picture frame out of a possible entire flip book collection of measurements that could be made like how a MRI scan takes a ton of tiny slices of images then pieces it together to make a eventual 3D image of the entire object at look. I hope our technology and quantum computing can advance how we measure these particles instead of in a single point but rather, an entire moving video that let's us visualize the full behavior/motion/vibration/alterations with in these particles. That would be really cool a atomic camera that takes videos like a microscope looking at a single celled organism in motion kind of thing.v

The particle wave that transmit through should be leading by at most the planck length if you count the peak. Is that correct? If the lead is more than planck length, then the beginning line of the race is uncertain by more than planck length.

idk much about quantum mechanics so im going of what you said on the vid

if the peak of the wave function moves as close as one particle could to the speed of light ;
and most of the wave function "bounces back", meaning that the amount of energy the particle has is way more likely to be smaller than amount of energy that the wall blocks ;
Wouldnt that mean that the wall can only be crossed if the particle has more energy than if it was "in" the peak, aka faster than light?

if the wall blocks particles traveling up to the speed of light, it follows that a crossing particle has to be faster than the speed of light, right?

What i want to say is, the probability of it traveling faster than the speed of light after crossing the barrier only exists if we allow the uncrossable-to-up-the-speed-of-light-wall to be crossable. like, if the peak is the speed of light, wouldnt it already imply that everything in front of it would have to be faster than the speed of light .

Thank you

The best channel ever to have a crystal clear understanding of the fundamentals of Quantum Mechanics. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

if part of the wave function and therefore part of a single particle(right?) passes through the barrier, it sure sounds like that "single particle" is made up of pieces

sounds more like throwing a ball of sand at the wall and some of the sand hits the wall just right to go up and over

Very informative. Thanks for sharing. Best wishes, Lord-Jesus-Christ dot

absolutely enlightening

I love your how you speak, you know you are amazing right?

Can we manipulate quantum tunneling so it occurs 100% of the time and then we can travel the universe teehee?

TU🙏❣

An amazing teacher ☘️❤️☘️

Is the width of the probability distribution of a QM particle somehow related to its rest mass?

Sehr schöne Grafiken (welches GrafikAnimationsprogramm nutzt Du?)
Solange die auslaufende Wellenfunktion hinter dem Potenzialwall an keiner Stelle größer ist als die barrierefrei laufende Teilchenwelle, entsteht kein Problem mit vermeintlicher Überlichtgeschwindigkeit. Es werden ja nur bestimmte Furierkomponenten gelöscht, die das Maximum der Welle nach vorne verlagern. Aber löschen oder einschränken von Komponenten erhöht ja nicht die Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass Teilchen plötzlich überlichtschnell durchkommen könnten.

Fantastic, fantastic! I guess that what we saw is the distribution of the position. It would be illuminating to have simultaneous representation of the momentum distribution

Can tunneling be understood as the result of part of the wave function having enough energy to overcome the potential barrier?

The tunneling effect is used to great effect in flash memories, where a thin layer of silicon dioxide creates a potential barrier which can be traversed and store the electron on a structure called a “floating gate.” This is accomplished by a kind of tunneling called Fowler Nordheim tunneling, in which the potential barrier is modified by the application of a voltage.

This is the best explanation I have seen, read, or heard to date. The animations were excellent.