Quantum Tunneling: Particles can pass through energy barriers that classical physics says they shouldn’t, like an electron appearing on the other side of an insulating gap. This occurs because the wavefunction extends into and beyond the barrier, allowing a probability of finding the particle on the far side. Tunneling is vital in nuclear fusion (sun’s energy), transistors, and scanning tunneling microscopes. While mathematically well-described, the mechanism—how a particle "tunnels"—isn’t visualizable classically. It defies classical energy conservation (though only momentarily, within uncertainty limits). Tunneling exemplifies the probabilistic, non-local nature of quantum mechanics, where particles explore forbidden regions, a phenomenon essential yet conceptually elusive.
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