Replying to LO27884 --
Dear Organlearners,
John Dicus <jdicus@ourfuture.com> writes:
>A couple of days ago, our 13 year old Pomeranian,
>Dusty, taught me a lesson in quantum thinking. I'm
>reasonably sure he didn't imagine it to be so, but
>nonetheless.
>
>He was at the base of the single step separating our
>kitchen from our family room. Although it's only
>about 8-9 inches tall, it's at chin level for Dusty.
(snip)
Greetings dear John,
Thank you for this fine story. It illustrates several lessons.
>I seem to remember a phenomenon in physics called
>"tunneling." I think it occurs when you manage to go
>from one state to another, apparently crossing over an
>intermediate state that's impossible for you to cross
>over. It's as though you had somehow managed to
>cheat and tunnel through the wall.
Allow me just two comments on this "tunneling" effect. But first I have to
describe this effect. It was first discovered as a mathematical
peculiarity when solving the Schroedinger equation for a particle in a
"potential well". To get the correct solutions, certain so called
"boundary conditions" at the walls of the well had to be met.
Surprisingly, not only were there solutions for inside the well, but also
for in the walls of the well. These solutions in the wall disappear
rapidly deeper into the wall. So, if the wall is not to thick, the
particle can escape the well by tunneling through its wall. Afterwards
physical devices were invented showing this "tunneling" effect.
The first comment. One of the boundary conditions is the so called
"continuity" condition. Without this condition, the correct solutions for
inside the well cannot be found. But by invoking this condition, the
correct solutions within the well extend themselves to other solutions
within the walls of the well. This perhaps mysterious "continuity"
condition is nothing else than wholeness for the well and its walls
formulated in a mathematical manner. As perhaps Jan Smuts would have said
it. The well and its particle is the whole while the walls are its field.
The second comment. The well and its particle are the system. Its boundary
is the walls of the well. This boundary is neither completely closed (as
physicicts originally expected) nor completely open, but partially open --
hence the "tunneling" effect. The thicker the boundary, the more its
degree of closure. If the mission&vision of an organisation indeed form
its boundary, then they should not be too thick otherwise no "tunneling"
is possible.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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