Particle Penetrating through a Potential Barrier

[sara79999]

Homework Statement

hey all! i have a relli urgent question that needs to be answered in as much detail as possible...hope someone can help...

Q: How is a particle, with energy of lower value than the potential barrier, able to penetrate through the barrier? (ans cannot have reasons like -cuz it has a non-zero probability of penetrating...more of a descriptive answer---supp to be at least 100 words long, but I am alrite with any kind of help!)

Homework Equations

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The Attempt at a Solution

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[dynamicsolo]

You will probably want to do some searching on the topic of "quantum tunneling" to see what people say about this. It is true that the phenomenon is related to the result that the wavefunction of a particle is found on both sides of a "sufficiently" narrow barrier, but exactly how this is to be interpreted has been the subject of, shall we say, some discussion...