| Line | Most attempts by physicists to send particles |
| faster than the speed of light involve a remarkable | |
| phenomenon called quantum tunneling, in which | |
| particles travel through solid barriers that appear | |
| (5) | to be impenetrable. If you throw a ball at a wall, |
| you expect it to bounce back, not to pass straight | |
| through it. Yet subatomic particles perform the | |
| equivalent feat. Quantum theory says that there is a | |
| distinct, albeit small, probability that such a particle | |
| (10) | will tunnel its way through a barrier; the probability |
| declines exponentially as the thickness of the | |
| barrier increases. Though the extreme rapidity of | |
| quantum tunneling was noted as early as 1932, | |
| not until 1955 was it hypothesized—by Wigner and | |
| (15) | Eisenbud—that tunneling particles sometimes |
| travel faster than light. Their grounds were | |
| calculations that suggested that the time it takes a | |
| particle to tunnel through a barrier increases with | |
| the thickness of the barrier until tunneling time | |
| (20) | reaches a maximum; beyond that maximum, |
| tunneling time stays the same regardless of | |
| barrier thickness. This would imply that once | |
| maximum tunneling time is reached, tunneling | |
| speed will increase without limit as barrier thickness | |
| (25) | increases. Several recent experiments have |
| supported this hypothesis that tunneling particles | |
| sometimes reach superluminal speed. According to | |
| measurements performed by Raymond Chiao and | |
| colleagues, for example, photons can pass through | |
| (30) | an optical filter at 1.7 times the speed of light. |
加"GMAT小百科"小智微信
直接送200