Quantum tunneling
The quantum effect where a particle passes through an energy barrier it classically could not surmount.
At a glance
Key signals
50% cross fields · reaches 1 more
- Physics
- Explanation
- Examples
- Misconception
- Sourced relations
- Attribution
Dependencies
What this concept builds on and what it makes possible — derived from the atlas’s dependency, causal and structural relations, not from every related edge.
Foundations · builds on
Quantum tunnelingemerges fromWavefunctionEstablished
The wavefunction leaks through barriers.
Mechanism: Because the wavefunction extends into a barrier, a particle has a chance to appear on the far side.
Enables · leads to
Quantum annealingdepends onQuantum tunnelingEstablished
Tunnel to the minimum.
Mechanism: Quantum annealing lets a system tunnel through energy barriers toward a low-cost solution.
Structural role & consequence
Interpreted from the current atlas graph — what the connections mean, not just how many there are.
50% of its relationships cross field boundaries, reaching 1 other discipline — unusual in a discipline where most concepts stay within their field.
structural · Structural graph analysis — not a claim of importance, causation or history.
Currently dark in the atlas: no key date stored · 2 of 2 of its relations lack claim-level evidence.
atlas representation · Describes the current Thinking OS representation, not the state of the world.
Builds on 1 foundation (requires / depends-on / derived-from / emerges-from).
structural · Structural graph analysis — not a claim of importance, causation or history.
Structural neighbourhood: 2 → 4 → 17 concepts reachable within 3 hops.
structural · Structural reach — being reachable is not the same as being understood.
cross-field
1 within-field, 1 cross-field
Strengths & constraints
Strengths
- Cross-disciplinary connector — 50% of its relationships cross field boundaries. structural
Constraints
- Evidence coverage currently thin in the atlas — few of its relationships carry claim-level evidence. atlas representation
- No dated history stored — the atlas records no key date for this concept. atlas representation
Conditions
- Its dependency reading rests on 1 foundation relation. structural
- Read structurally — most of its relationships carry no external evidence yet, so claims here are graph-derived. structural
Dependency radial
What this concept builds on (left) and what it makes possible (right) — derived from dependency and causal relations.
What builds on this
1 concept build on this directly, 1 in total, across 1 discipline.
Structural downstream reach along dependency edges — not a claim of historical necessity.
Seen through each discipline
How this concept sits in each of its fields — derived from its real connections in the graph, not asserted.
Related ideas to explore
Concepts that look related but are not yet connected here — candidates for a connection to reason about, not established links.
This idea also appears in…
The same structure shows up in other disciplines. These are real recurrences drawn from the graph — a starting point for asking “what carries over, and what changes?”
Concepts
- Quantum annealingQuantum Computing
crosses a discipline boundary
- Connects 2 other ideas across 1 discipline.
- Most of its connections are of the “Cause & effect” kind.
Derived from the graph’s real structure — observations, not a score.
Sources
- Nonadiabatic Tunneling (2016) verified
- Tunneling in Chemical Reactions (2016) verified