Quantum tunneling refers to the quantum mechanical phenomenon where a particle tunnels through a barrier that it classically could not surmount. This plays an essential role in several physical phenomena, such as the nuclear fusion that occurs in main sequence stars like the Sun. It has important applications to modern devices such as the tunnel diode, quantum computing, and the scanning tunnelling microscope. The effect was predicted in the early 20th century and its acceptance as a general physical phenomenon came mid-century. Tunnelling is often explained using the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the wave–particle duality of matter.
Watch:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTodS8hkSDg
Know more:
http://www.physicsoftheuniverse.com/topics_quantum_uncertainty.html
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/glossary/quantum_tunneling.html
Image via Wikipedia Commons:
Quantum tunnelling through a barrier. At the origin (x=0), there is a very high, but narrow potential barrier. A significant tunnelling effect can be seen.
#physics #tunneling
Is the Big Bang, at X=0, a quantum tunneling event that made this phenomena a reality? A sort of cosmic barrier, or signpost telling us that since we come from a singular origin, the cosmos is within us. Perhaps we really are a way for the universe to know itself.
ReplyDeleteEvo Lumin Origin hypotheses for Universe are logically inconsistent because they presume an outside to Universe. But if there is an outside then it's not everything; what is then outside the outside and why is it not considered part of Universe if Universe is everything?
ReplyDeleteOrigin hypothesis such as Big Bang implicitly presume that scale is absolute at some level. But is it? What experience truly suggests that it is? Meanwhile, a triangle is a triangle independent of scale. Shape is independent of size. Conceptuality is predicated on that fact.
Universe being eternal is consistent with all that is known and does not presume an outside to Universe, neither in time nor space.
We'll see how physicists eventually resolve the origin dilemma, but for now it is premature to accept origin hypotheses.
The example of tunneling I first learned of was to explain how an ammonia molecule can invert; an ammonia molecule is one nitrogen atom connected to three hydrogen atoms, with the hydrogen atoms forming the base of a tetrahedron and the nitrogen atom at the apex.
ReplyDeleteDavid Chako are you suggesting that the nothing in the concept of something from nothing is an assumption of there being an outside? Interestingly, this point is argued by intelligent design folks to argue against the godless interpretation of a Big Bang. Cosmologist who support the idea of an original singularity event don't interpret this outside as being anything and would disagree with your inference.
ReplyDeleteThe concept of a singularity origin doesn't at all necessarily imply a non-eternal beginning. Although that is a possibility.
Finally, Big Bang proponents do not believe in a continuity of absolute scale in space. At a local level, space has this apparent property, but the expansion model implies curved space.
Quantum tunneling is one of the theoretical models that support Hawking Radiation - ie leaky black holes..
ReplyDeleteSean Walker I am saying: something from nothing is a contradiction. I am not thereby intending to side with those who try to "solve" this contradiction by postulating yet another something (whether diety or otherwise); I am intending to say that Universe is self contained in both space and time. Any model that attempts to dissociate the two concepts is logically flawed.
ReplyDeleteI am also saying that "belief" in absolute scale necessarily calls into question any strategy based on abstraction -- such as concept formation in the first place.
More generally, either uncertainty is primal independent of scale (a function of relative scale but not absolute scale) or it is a mirage. If uncertainty is a mirage then so is volitional being, and in that case we are puppets and it matters little, long term, whether there is a great puppet master in the sky or a conglomeration of Laplacian gearworks -- in either case there would be no point to trying to understand things.
David Chako I think questions of volition (free will) and consciousness are fascinating, but they follow from cosmology / cosmogony. My impression from what you said is that you are reversing this relationship. Perhaps I am missing something, but that seems a very odd thing to do - smacks of some form of philosophical dogma.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, although it seems to me to be a nearly orthogonal digression from quantum tunneling, it's an interesting thing you've mentioned. I intuitively agree with you that a non-stochastic, deterministic world undermines at least a natural definition of free will. Some argue otherwise however. Daniel Dennett is a proponent of Compatibalism. Sam Harris and he have had a cantankerous debate on the matter. Sam talks about it here in a more friendly moment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXWDkwSyjpU
Why should something from nothing be a problem, David Chako? As long as it all adds up to nothing, I don't see the discrepancy.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong, I am not suggesting that this solves anything. But in my opinion the particular problem isn't one.
"Adds up to nothing" ?
ReplyDeleteThe conservation of nothingness is achieved through the balance of matter and antimatter. I believe there are other models of balance in multiverse theories.
ReplyDeleteSean Walker I am identifying a complementation: uncertainty outside volition inside. Both or neither. Consciousness is relevant to every question because you can't ask a question without it. To claim that consciousness is subordinate to material is reductionism and leads to untenable problems. To claim that consciousness is independent of material is intrinsicism and likewise leads to insoluble problems. Yet both reductionism and intrinsicism share the premise of some ultimate cause, and both are incorrect therefore, because nothing is not a cause and so from whence did the presumed ultimate cause originate if nothing existed before it occurred?
ReplyDeleteYes it is a question of cosmology -- but in the spirit of the original meaning of the Greek Kosmos, which did include both petceptual/material/physiological and conceptual/ideational/psychological components, not as either/or, not as one before the other, but rather as essential complements necessarily co-occuring as evidenced by the fact that human beings exist having bodies and minds without contradiction in principle.
Not to close down the discussion, but I am very mindful that this is a major tangent to the OP.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe solipsism is credible and that appears to be where you are coming from when you state something like:
Consciousness is relevant to every question because you can't ask a question without it. To claim that consciousness is subordinate to material is reductionism and leads to untenable problems.
The scientific record is replete with evidence that the physical world unfolds quite independent of our consciousness most of the time. It also quite clear from evidence that consciousness arose from the medium of the physical world, it is not inherent in it and it is not an equal cause.
When you take a credit to buy a house you got yourself a house and credit, but basically you got nothing - so you created something from nothing, David Chako. When you could borrow energy from the universe, you could create stuff as much as you like to, right?! Or create plus and minus energy.
ReplyDeleteAndreas Stangl Energy is a scalar. It cannot be negative.
ReplyDeleteQuantum tunneling can be explained classically using an extended particle model, much the same as a high jumper whose center of mass does not exceed the height of the high bar. And Quantum Computing has never demonstrated quantum speedup despite all the hype and promises for many decades...
ReplyDeleteWow, David Chako I just tell you, that something from nothing is not contradiction, and you want to lecture me about physics (with the emphasis on the lecture, not on the me ;-) )- nice.
ReplyDeleteAmazing, that you don't know how the universe works, since you know everything about it.
Let me guess, there is also no antimatter since 19 century people didn't know anything about it - mass conservation and stuff, right?!
Okay... Let's keep the tone civil folks...
ReplyDeleteAs to my original statement, it is not my intention to accept a particular origin "hypothesis" but to entertain such thoughts and ideas as they relate to the basic structure of the universe. A better understanding of this structure will help explain how our universe came into being and other mysteries such as dark matter and energy. It's fun to discuss such things and learning from the well-thought-out comments.
ReplyDelete