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From: sixtysymbols
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  • the chances of a resonance cascade scenario are highly unlikely

  • 7 people cannot comprehend the beauty behind science.

  • its just like video game glitches

  • i pass true the door everyday :)

  • Bell who had some questions about quantum mechanics - but worked with it since it worked impeccably "for all practical purposes" used the acronym "fapp" for this.

  • You know, two membrane touchscreens (think old nintendo ds) have been around longer than capacitive touchscreens (think iphone), and the reason capacitive touchscreens won out is because they can be placed behind a very rigid, durable material, like tempered glass. This nanoparticle thing is a great idea, but won't its usefulness be limited by the durability of the polymer (or other flexible insulator) substrate? wont it be just as vulnerable to scratches at the old touchscreens?

  • WHY BANG IT ON A POOR DOOR IF IN YOUR SIDE AND MUCH NEARER, IS A WALL.. HMM?

  • @TheJaws0413 Because he's a very thoughtful person who doesn't want to (overly) disturb the person in the next office maybe

  • lets play hide and seek...im a wave

    ...wtf how did you get in the wall

    smile

  • I used to be like him but then my parents bought me a computer.

  • @wackyLegends That is disturbingly true.

  • I want to touch him O.O

  • @JossJossJoss1

    Actually the wave isn't the real thing either. "Particles" are more of a wave-particle duality, where they have properties of both. You could describe them as a superposition of the amplitudes of the wave, which defines the position and the amplitude of the particle.

    ...Damn, I'm bad at explaining this.

  • Comment removed

  • "troo" lol excellent vid

  • 3:23 i wish if i have Lectures in PHYSICS ! :(

  • i love how he summarizes the lesson attributing to the limitations of human understanding. there are indeed things in the world that humans may not have the ability to comprehend.

  • So thats how ghosts get around.

  • @MrMaffen lol ur right btw do u do c++ programing cuz != is not equal to in c++ or is it the way u actaully type it on the internet i might sound stupid but its just a quesiton?

  • Fermi would definitely come at you, bro.

  • Flash-memory != Random-Access-Memory

  • The particle can just pass right true the door... lol nice accent :P

  • And about the whole electricity thing at about 4 minutes on, either you can make the gap smaller, or provide more electrons; thus invoking a higher number of electrons to "beat the odds" and go through anyway. This is seen EVERYWHERE, especially in action movies. What is this? Put simply, the fact that charge-carrying matter (i.e. electric cable for a telephone wire) can spark and shoot out electricity proves quantum tunneling. A very common example is lightning, which occurs virtually everywhe

  • @WZaDproductions

    Actually that's the electrons moving through the air. With tunneling they go from one point to another directly. The air may be an insulator, but it can still conduct electricity, just not very well.

  • Lol, this proves that harry potter ient magical at all, he can simply tweak the probability of the location of an object with mass

  • Given what I know (from these videos for example) I simply refuse the idea of quantum mechanics. I don't think that a particle can exist in many states and different places at the same time. I think that we see a particle displaying quantum properties, because:

    -either we can't measure it's properties, or:

    -if we could make any measurement it will make it collapse in one defined state or another. Correct me if I'm wrong, or if you think alike. Einstein thought that way, I think he was right.

  • electrons jump through tiny spaces. What's so whacky about that?

  • Is this how a digitizer works?

  • why is the volume so low on your videos, sort it out

  • @bazle64 It's probably your speakers, the volume seems fine.

  • Hey... That MY touchscreen!

  • quantum tunneling - you have a virgin and try to break through - keep on trying since there's a probability that you'll make it through the wall. I of course mean the wall which you have to transcend to win his or her heart. Some need a lot of effort and some shoot through without any effort at all.

  • ...irish guy hopes that no one of this society can not criticize him because the other one's in the same society. that's as dumb as someone ridiculing a person that uses the old fashioned lightbulbs in order to work LED lighting. "That's so contradicting" for people like the irish guy.

  • there's a reason why people like the irish guy just focus on the very large and/or very small - they know to which results this leads on the scales in between - and this way they hope to be able to say that they "couldn't know" to which damaging results their work leads for others. the ...

  • 1:45 .... lololol

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  • A semi-condutor

  • I think I'm going to be sick...

  • This quote blows my mind: "Even though there are huge gaps in our philosophical understanding of it, we can still apply it again and again". There are books of discussion in regards to that statement.

  • So what does this do to our bodies and minds when using these new devices that use this technology?

  • to think, that much physics goes into pressing a screen that I now take for granted.

  • I'm 38 now, so that means I probably have 40 years left to figure out what he just said. I will make a concerted effort to understand it. Although Richard P Feynman said "If you think you understand Quantum Mechanics, you don't understand Quantum Mechanics"

  • i love this kind of videos

  • @blues260 no you don't

  • The University of Nottingham must not be very secure if people can just pass right through the doors.

  • @gfdriver ...well - the people being damaged by this group still don't get who's damaging them - no matter if directly or a little bit more hidden in the process of division of labor.

  • @gfdriver

    british people are nice

  • So it seems that the Sun is entirely dependant on quantum tunneling, but I was just wondering if there are starts hot/dense that don't depend on it? And how would that star differ on its outside when observing it?

  • @ProoMaaaas

    Massive stars do that. And they appear blue. They only live for a few million years. The sun depends on tunneling to burn its fuel, so it burns it slow. Massive starts burn it extremely fast. They much more massive than the sun and therefore have a lot more fuel, but the rate at which they burn it is so great, they run out of it very, very fast.

  • @RealNC I would just like to point out that stars don't actually 'burn'.

  • I remember Crisis Angel once explaining one of his tricks the way you explained the football at 1:20 :P

  • Now what is preventing some molecules from ending up in the same place like here on Earth? Wouldn't that cause a Fusion reaction destroying everything?

  • @JJAB91 I'm thinking - not enough energy. Temperature is a measure in the amount of thermal energy of an object. Think about it, the particles on the Sun would have so much more energy than the particles on the Earth due to the difference in temperature.

  • @secret212000

    Yeah, in the process of fusion energy is released. It requires lower energy to be fused as a helium atom than a hydrogen atom. When energy is emitted from the atom it is sent off in "quanta" this quanta has a specific energy and corresponds to a specific frequency on the electromagnetic spectrum. This frequency is the color of the star.

  • I can't seem to get a single video to load past more than a minute or so. Anyone else having the same difficulty?

  • Not a physicist here but let me get this straight, protons in the sun that are close to one another tunnel through coulombs repulsion causing fusion reactions, which causes the sun to shine?

  • @secret212000 The mass of the sun causes intense pressure at its' core. The intense pressure makes matter so dense that atoms begin to fuse together due to their proximity. The fusion reaction inside of stars obeys the uncertainty principle.

    The energy released in this fusion reaction creates explosive outward force. This force counteracts the inward pull of gravity. The sun shines due to the immense release of energy from fusion.

  • Daft question....were the screens designed with Quantum Mechanics in mind or is that just a way of you explaining how it works? For example, you mentioned a simple battery/bulb circuit...They were invented long before we knew about Quantum Theory (I think) so we never sat down and said 'We can use Quantum Tunnelling to get light from a circuit'...So when designing these screens did they say 'We can use Quantum Tunnelling to make a screen' ? Hope I explained that well enough!

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  • great vid.. keep up the gd work

  • it's so nuts. I just can't believe that humans are escaping the world where we have to wait for big objects to move around. We work down, down, down in this place where quantum tunneling happens, and we get the iPad. Ha ha ha ha.

  • quanum mechanics shows us that our theory about reality is selfmade :) correlation is not proof but our assumptions are deducted from correlations. so are we creating our world by defining what part of possibilities we're choosing to accept as "reality"? Is reality just a side product of the wave function?

  • Great job explaining that. So you got me curious. If we are talking orders of magnitude more current per infinitesimal force applied what happens if you stick it in a vice and then super cool it.

  • @kristijanadrian  what?

  • I feel smarter watching these videos. :)

  • As usual my brain hurts trying to grasp the content - I love it. Thanks for taking time out of your schedules to do these videos. Keep them coming!!!

  • does this prove the law of attraction that people talk about? i think not. so i don't need to worry about my thughts manifesting reality? i think theres nothing to worry about. do i always answer my own questions?

  • He holds a soccer ball, but calls it a football... what sorcery is this?

  • @Phoboskomboa

    Nope. On this side of the pond we call it a football^^

  • I know I was sarcastically mocking my own ethnocentrism.

    On this side of the pond we call it the ocean. =D

  • @Phoboskomboa mong

  • Flash is not Random Access Memory :)

  • @djbanizza

    Flash is indeed not RAM - thanks for pointing this out. My apologies for the slip of the tongue in the video. See also comments below for more discussion of RAM vs EEPROM.

    Best wishes,

    Philip Moriarty (speaking in video)

  • @Moriarty2112

    Maybe you've heard of it (I only found out recently), but there is one type of memory that's both RAM and EEPROM. It's called FRAM (F stands for ferroelectric). I don't know the physics behind it, but it's as fast as RAM while being non-volatile at the same time. Just tossing it as an idea for a video if you feel like it.

  • "And try to understand.... What the Hell quantum tunneling is." That was funny. :D

  • This video is brilliant! Put that guy on more often. :D

  • i was actually expecting the comments to be flooded by people saying "Apple is going to be the 1st one to get it" or smth like that

    bt its just filled with arguments of who is right or wrong

    :S

  • and create a barrier so to speak, to direct the flow of data and or light to your will in a screen just by messing with the particles in and around the air in front of you with something like a vaccuum? Just a thought, I may not have a firm grasp on the whole quantum tunneling but a response would be well appreciated. Thanks

  • I stumbled upon this video as i was just searching through some questions i had about quantum mechanics. (I'm just a regular 18 year old who was interested in it and wanted to see what i could find) And i'm wondering if things like Holographic touch screens and things of that such could be built with the idea of this quantum tunneling. I mean if it's saying that there is a probability that something can pass through a barrier couldn't you say that in turn you could reverse that theory...cont

  • I believe because it is absurd Tertullian ( 160 – 220 AD ) ‘ I believe in Physics because it’s absurd ’

    Will you say such thing to a modern man ?

    I doubt it Most of us would be asking God’s forgiveness for even thinking it

    But

    I read conclusion from some article

    " One of the best kept secrets of science is

    that physicists have lost their grip on reality "

    So, is philosophy of Physics absurd or no?

    Israel Sadovnik Socratus

  • This may sound like a stupid/weird question, but: how come, if there's a probably of finding particles in different places (like in the video), how come things, the size of real life objects, aren't...how can I put this, all over the place?

  • @vmistry94

    Think about this, what makes an object solid? It's not that the particles within solid objects are any bigger than the objects at the quantum level, in fact they are one and the same. What makes a difference is that solid objects bound their particles together through forces experienced between particles. These forces are what keep objects from flying apart. At the quantum level you have objects that avoid being trapped by these forces, and hence can pass through doors.

  • Martyn's collection of plastic water bottles puts yours to shame

  • Ok, but how can i "feel" where is the exact position of my touch? There is something like a matrix o conductor that feel this change and tell me the position?

    Very good explanation,

    Thank you

  • Thanks for the video, but could you elaborate on something? You keep using the term "barrier", but what does that mean on the level on an electron? Another atom? A molecule of bound atoms (such as a sliver of atoms bound together to form a slice of quartz)? Is the reason we don't find things jumping through each other on a larger scale because as you get further away from the electron the probability drops so dramatically that the odds of it "jumping" through are almost infinitesimally small?

  • @arloj. That's a great question. Another atom can certainly be used as a barrier for an electron (e.g. Google "Eigler quantum corral"). Electrons can tunnel through an atomic barrier.

    SImilarly, semiconductor devices use thin (nanometre-thick) "slivers" of atoms (as you suggest) as barriers to confine electrons. But a physical object isn't needed - an absence of matter (i.e. a vacuum) can also form a barrier for electrons.

    ...contd in next comment.

    Philip (speaking in video)

  • @arloj ...contd. A key reason we don't see tunnelling on a larger scale is exactly as you suggest. The probability for tunnelling drops exponentially with the width of the barrier. So once the barrier is more than a few nanometres wide the probability is indeed infinitesimally small.

    There's also the question of the (de)coherence of the electron wavefunction but that's a subject that it's not possible to explain in a 500 character YouTube comment!

    Best wishes,

    Philip

  • Thanks for the reply! Keep up the great videos.

  • @arloj The barrier is the empty space between particles. It's a barrier in that an electron requires a lot of energy to escape a particle. You have a film of a material with very high electrical resistance. A charge is applied to one side and charge is read on the other side. If the charge can pass through this film, it'll complete a circuit and we'll detect it. When the particles in the film are brought close enough together, electrons more frequently tunnel through the film and we detect it.

  • God I wish I had teachers like you guys at Nottingham. Quantum tunneling sounds nuts and I remember them talking about it back in the mid 90's on the discovery channel.

  • Thanks interesting video

  • Even though I'm one of those guys who sees quantum mechanics as the perfect example of what we don't know and not of what we know, you get brought down to earth when small things like voltage or any interaction for that fact is pretty clearly described by probability. I still don't like it, but I understand it.

  • Great video!

    I've heard about quantum tunneling many times, but never had an intuitive understanding of it until i watched this video. Thank you! (it seems so obvious now) Now I think I understand STM!

  • I'll second this, for such a complicated subject you did awesome explaining it.

  • A particle doesn't actually tunnel through a barrier as if going through the barrier.

    Because of Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the particle's wavelike nature is spread out in space, and even past the barrier.

    As a result, the particle that seemed to have tunneled was already on the other side of the barrier in the first place.

  • @dC100GHz. Interesting comment but see "sixtysymbols" ' (and my) comments below re. the audience we're aiming for with this video. See also the videos Sixty Symbols has posted on the wavefunction (Psi), the uncertainty principle, and frequency (symbol: nu).

    Best wishes,

    Philip (person speaking in video)

  • Thank you Philip for your reply.

    You did an outstanding job of explaining quantum tunneling to the laymen. I always keep an eye out on sixtysymbols. You guys are great.

  • what does it have to do with anything but conductivity but changing the thickness of an elastic material thus decreasing its resistants? And quantum tunneling - u made epic contradiction - With the sun, according to ur own theory, two positive charges, not only can get so close to each other, but be in each other as well, as a ball in the door. Then the same particle in the sun, is also in my ass in the same time, after all i did sun bathed nude today.

  • Conductivity results from electrons moving freely, there is no barrier stopping the electrons travelling. When you lightly touch an elastic material how much do you compress it? Not much, so the resistance is hardly changing.

    This is quantum tunnelling because the electrons do not have enough energy to be between the nano particles, yet because of quantum effects they can tunnel through. This is useful because you get 10 times the current after a movement of one ten-millionth of a mm.

  • Though I might argue on the merits on how much resistance CAN change or how much change in resistance IS needed to go from now "flow" to "flow", I will like to address something else you said. If, the electrons do tunnel, how do we know if they are superimposed at any time at different locations, REGARDLESS if there is a pressure from the finger or not. How was it measured to point out it is the fact, and not change in ohms?Also the press ALL adjacent areas, then how can it tell the needed tun?

  • Resistance can change using other materials, resistive touch screens exist. The reason quantum tunnelling is better is the change in resistance is is far larger for tiny compressions.

    Secondly we know the electron tunnels because the probability of it being outside the well increases, thus if we have many electrons this means more are on the other side, and hence they have tunnelled. The probability of the electrons being on the other side is dependent on the size of the gap.

  • I just got brain-f***ed

  • X3 absolutely awesome <3

  • So , does tunneling of electrons happen only in certain atoms / molecules or does it happen in every thing ? and if so , what keeps the electrons from tunneling out of orbit and escaping from the nuclei or crashing into it ?

    I mean , to me this seems to break all of the classical laws of electromagnetism which the govern the motion of the electrons in their orbits around the nuclei , so if someone could explain that to me it would be much appreciated !

    Thanks .

  • The classical description of the atom is competently unstable, it would decay in 10^-8 seconds.

    Instead you have to think of the electron as a wave confined inside an area by the electric field and centrifugal force. Now it is possible for the electron to tunnel out, but it is unlikely. (More interestingly this description gives rise to the specific possible orbitals of electrons.)

    The electrons tunnelling in the screen can be thought of as free unbound electrons inside the nano particle.

  • I have no idea if that explanation is helpful.

    Explaining anything in small youtube posts is horrible.

    (And just in case anyone asks about centrifugal force not existing. It is a "fictitious" force felt by an orbiting particle which results from orbital angular momentum.)

  • quantum physics is insane

  • Should of explained Tunneling earlier on in the video. I figured it out as the video was playing but I missed some concepts in the beginning of the video because I was focused on the tunneling concept.

    Awesome video, 5 Stars

  • Take the red pill

  • I know nothing of quantum mechanics but that made perfect sense. Thank you.

  • 3-D touchscreen, we'll never have to make physical contact with an object ever again :P

    Power to the invention of the button!

  • Man, I quantum mechanics is awesome, I want it...I want it now,

  • Heh, I have that same flash drive :P

    Though it isn't random access memory...

  • @AparoidX. You're correct - the flash drive is better described as EEPROM, although it's often loosely described as flash-RAM (hence my reference to RAM). Apologies for any confusion.

    Best wishes,

    Philip (person speaking in video)

  • I love the professor's explanation of quantum mechanics!

  • @ 2:47 I thought the probability of finding them at different places was the same and not different ? /Quantum mechanics. Double that with the un certainity principle.

  • Great episode!

  • what is the whole idea of "Quantum" physics, mechanics, everything???

  • It's just the physics of the very small i.e. subatomic and atomic particles.

  • Amen Brother. You are preaching to the converted. Hail QCD !

  • You are cute...

  • Eisenbergs Uncertainty Principle. You can never know the velocity and position of a particle.

    I think the effect is happening to my car keys...now where the hell did I leave them...?

  • That would be Heisenberg... and perhaps your keys are in multiple places simultaneously.

  • @Kargoneth

    Not only did my keys end up in multiple places but my spelling too.

  • And this video sums up why I love sixtysymbols!

    Amazing video and a good explanation on a hard subject!

  • awesome! this would of gone over my head if i had not watched what the bleep do we know

  • Dig it !

  • i always wondered how touch screens worked

    and now i do! (sorta)

  • This is not how regular touchscreens work. There are currently two major types of touchscreens, resistive and capacitive, that work in a different way than the kind he explained in the video.

  • @eltotoX. Completely correct. Touch screen technology is currently based around capacitive or resistive sensing. The technology described here involves a new type of pressure-sensitive device exploiting tunnelling between nanoparticles.

    If you'll forgive a shameless plug for another SixtySymbols video (!), capacitive sensing (albeit for a different type of device) is described in the video on the theremin we did a while ago.

    Best wishes,

    Philip (person speaking in video)

  • That's because he's talking about the new touchscreen technology that's coming out soon to replace our current technology.

  • TWO copies of the God Delusion on your self? That's quite a fan there.

  • @VanderWolls At least he put somewhat of a barrier between them. Check out those (I can't make out the smaller text) Physics books! It's as if he's trying to draw some kind of parallel... oh my.. oh dear, MY BRAIN

  • skroo thes adds,

  • BRILLIANT THANK YOU

  • Wonderful!

  • Interesting stuff.

    Couldn't help but notice the several copies of RICHARD DAWKINS books in the background haha, all thanks to HD.

  • @Lavabug. I'm the person speaking in the video and, yep, I'm unashamedly a Dawkins' fan. (Apart from his support of the "Brights" movement nonsense - that just makes me cringe. A lot.).

    I have two copies of the book on my shelves because I was given it as a present by a graduating student a day after I bought the book myself!

    All the best,

    Philip

  • Big fan myself too haha.

    By the way, you win the award for pronouncing "wave" in the most interesting manner. :)

  • is there a way to really make it a barrier which absolutely nothing can pass trough ?

  • diamond?

  • light can go trough diamond but about 1/3th of its normal speed :D

  • That is amazing, basically.

  • right now there isn't

  • I love how its from the uni of nottingham but features an irish man and aussie :P which brings me to my point education is world wide. LETS HOLD HANDS. FRIENDSHIP!

  • It states of a high degree of change in exchange on the third plane (in and out), but what is the senitivity on the other two planes?

    In the future could it be said that this could be used to pick up finger prints when the user touchs the screen.

  • My Firefox spell check says it's spelled "tunneling"

  • @culwin google accepts both

  • that's because it uses American English , which is exactly the same reason why i have to type "realize" instead of "realise" !

  • Awesome video, more nanotech asap please!

  • I want to switch to whatever brand of coffee he drinks..

  • As an Irish American I only wish I had that awesome Irish brogue. Perfect for explaining quantum tunneling.

  • @lynchmobb2000 It reminds me of that episode in Family guy. The Irish where like super scientist until they discovered alcohol. lol

  • Videos like this are what make this one of the best channels on YouTube.

  • wow i really love these videos, Keep up the good work, cuz i wanna see more stuff ;) Physics FTW ^^

  • great stuff the explenation was really clear to me :)

  • Thank you for the explanation, very interesting and educational!

  • this is how your smell works

    its amazing stuff :)

  • you guys should do a video on the elementary particles, hadrons, baryons, leptons, etc, using various kinds of balls

  • Great video.

  • That concept of an electron having a non-specific location is amazing. Just deepends for me the mystery of 'what is stuff?'

  • Don't get me wrong, I love the sixtysymbols videos but most times I hear people explaining QM or even atoms in general they start by saying that atoms are "like footballs" and the electrons orbiting them like planets orbiting the sun.

    You have to unlearn all that once you study the subject in more detail, so why explain it like that at all?

    QM is difficult to visualise, but the maths work really well... if you want a slightly better analogy, try explaining it as a fuzzy microbe or something :)

  • I have no idea what a "fuzzy microbe" looks like. So the analogy with the football works fine for me :-)

  • Somebody with little to no knowledge of classical physics let alone QM would find it very difficult to associate particles with abstract concepts like waves and 'fuzzy microbes'. It is necessary to use the classical 'solar system' model to help people visualise and connect with the concept- it is simply a convenient way of communicating to the layperson something that is in essence much more complex.

    Don't forget some people are not gifted with an understanding as deep as your own..!