How? Through the tunneling of protons as they dematerialize from one location and materialize in another. They speed up the chemical reactions within our cells. The electrons in your body travel along respiratory chains via quantum tunneling!Īs McFadden and Al-Khalili go on to explain in Chapter 3 of “Life on the Edge,” we have amazing nanomachines in our bodies that coordinate the motion of the protons, neutrons, and electrons within the cell. Scientists have found that the very process that converts energy in your body from one form to another ( cellular respiration), is powered by this amazing process.

But we’re in the quantum world now, remember? Does it have the ability to quantum tunnel? With so many atoms and molecules constantly moving around, it would seem unlikely. So what does quantum tunneling have to do with you? Your body is made up of trillions of cells. And as far as we know, large objects that are made up of trillions of atoms - such the chair you’re sitting on - cannot behave in such a coherent fashion. They must be “in sync.” The peaks and troughs of their waves must coincide, or be “coherent,” as scientists would put it. So why aren’t those things possible - at least yet?īecause in order for an object to quantum tunnel, its particles must behave in a wave-like fashion. Ok, so at this point you may be thinking along the lines of time travel, teleportation, or walking through walls. Prefer a visual? Check out this Youtube video.īRINGING THE MAGIC OF QUANTUM TUNNELING TO DAILY LIFE If the hill is the barrier, the ball would be able to move through it even without being kicked up hill. The ball simply doesn’t have enough potential energy to move up the hill on its own. The only way to get the ball to the other side would be for someone to kick or carry it up the hill and then release it again. It will just roll back down to the valley. Then when it gets to a certain point up on the hill, it won’t go any further. You release it down the hill on the other side of the valley and watch it roll down. To illustrate, think of a ball rolling up hill. The particle moves from one place to another, regardless of anything that may stand in its way. What happens in quantum tunneling is that a particle bypasses the rules of the classical world of physics.

One minute it’s here, and the next thing you know it appears on the other side of the galaxy. Quantum tunneling is a process through which particles are able to pass through a barrier instantly. One such example is a concept that is essential to our discussion today - quantum tunneling. The world of quantum physics is so strange in comparison to what we know that it resembles many of our sci-fi movies.

Heart brain coherence physics