From: utzoo!utcsrgv!donald
Newsgroups: net.space
Title: Re: Re: quantum and FTL
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.503
Posted: Fri Aug  6 10:59:23 1982
Received: Fri Aug  6 11:31:14 1982


Argh.  Here comes a rehash of net.misc of a few months ago.  Quantum tunneling
of a particle through a potential barrier does not involve "transmission" in
the usual sense of the word (I am addressing Raymond, utzoo!miles) because it
does not involve *any* movement of matter or energy through the gap.
All that happens is that at one moment you see the particle *here* and
the next moment you see it over *there*.
My use of the phrase "instant of time"  has mislead Raymond;
it has nothing to do with instantaneous, it just means "moment in time".
As for my claim that the process of tunneling is instantaneous in some sense,
note that there is no implicit "transit time" in the appearance of the particle
on the other side of the barrier.  The collapse of the wave function is
instantaneous.  In other words, the events of disappearance and
reappearance are space-like events.  Once again I must apologize for an
oversimplified description of quantum processes.

On the topic of FTL, an interesting philosophical note:  Why are people
so hopeful about the existence of FTL and indifferent about the law of
conservation of energy?  It seems to me that people will bend over backwards
to try and find a loophole in physics or some specious argument that will al-
low FTL to exist, but when it comes to violating energy conservation (e.g.
perpetual motion machines), anyone suggesting it is labelled a crank!

						Don Chan