Much of the reduction of energy barriers is through invisible hands of quantum states. Does it really matter that it is through a translation of a electron state or by a vibration, or a reconfiguration or some other "mechanism" that really only amounts to a deviation in "normal" behavior? That is the critical thing... interaction of particles that deviates from "normal" behavior.
Maybe two years ago Scientific American had an article about friction. Friction? We knew all about friction, me thinks! Sorry, no we didn't. QM has reared it's ugly head and guess what, the smooth surface may not be the low friction surface. At the nanoscale, rough can be better. The way they taught that ice was slippery when I was in school was wrong. Nope, not due to localized melting due to pressure changes at the triple point. You probably heard this explanation too. It's wrong. Ice wouldn't be slippery at -20 degC if it was true. I can assure ice is still slippery much colder than that. Depending upon where you have lived, you may know that too. A completely different process involving surface charge transport and low van der Waal forces.
Here's a paper that talks about "adding noise" to improve neuron performance. Huh??!! As an engineer I thought I always wanted to reduce noise. As someone said, today's noise is tomorrow's signal. What if "1/f" is the signal... it is embedded in the environment, our brains, the cycles of life, and everything. The Market too. Now, if only I could build a phase shifted tuner, tie it to the quantum states of the market close tomorrow. Resonate on this couple with a gain boost medium. Watch the money roll in. If only...
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