Most attempts by physicists to send particles faster than the speed of

Hi Karishma,
I got confused here to identify "the earliest scientific investigator"

Isn't it right to compare "Wigner and Eisenbud" vs "Raymond Chiao and colleagues"?
I took Wigner and Eisenbud as the earlier investigators

What am I misunderstanding?

Greetings,
Kevin

This passage is a classic example of easy to read & understand but difficult to answer one.

GMATNinja I also have the same question . How is C the answer. By following the POE?

GMATNinja KarishmaB MartyTargetTestPrep
It says that earliest investigators were aware of tunneling , but W&E hypothesized something. It can imply that maybe they anticipated certain behaviour such as the one in hypothesis, but were unable to postulate it maybe due to limitations wrt maths/physics understanding.
Eg- In earlier times, everyone was aware of gravity(not the term but the effects of it) but Newton was the one who hypothesized it.
So doesn't it imply that they might have anticipated something similar to what Chiao and his colleagues did but were unable to hypothesize due the limitations I pointed?

Question 3:
Q543. RC00301-04. Which of the following statements about the earliest scientific investigators of quantum tunneling can be inferred from the passage?

(A) They found it difficult to increase barrier thickness continually.
(B) They anticipated the later results of Chiao and his colleagues.
(C) They did not suppose that tunneling particles could travel faster than light.
(D) They were unable to observe instances of successful tunneling.
(E) They made use of photons to study the phenomenon of tunneling.

First of all, we need to figure out who "the earliest scientific investigators of quantum tunneling" were.
The earliest investigators mentioned are "Though the extreme rapidity of quantum tunneling was noted as early as 1932, (these were the earliest investigators)... not until 1955 was it hypothesized—by Wigner and Eisenbud (they came afterwards)—that tunneling particles sometimes travel faster than light.

So the passage says that the earliest investigators did note the extreme rapidity of quantum tunneling but only much later was it hypothesised (theorised) that the particles could travel faster than light. That means that the earliest investigators did not suppose that tunneling particles could travel faster than light. That thought occurred to other investigators later.
Hence (C) is correct.

No other option makes sense.

rickyric395 - There is no reason to believe that it did come to their mind but they did not say anything because of some limitations. They did not say any such thing is possible (even if they could not prove it, they just had to hypothesize) and that implies that they did not think that it was possible - whatever the limitations.
If anyone before Newton had pointed out that there is a certain force that Earth exerts on all things, then he/she would have hypothesized gravity first, not Newton. No one can be credited with a thought until and unless they speak out. It is as good as they never had that thought. We can infer that they did not think of it.
Also, is there any other option that comes even close?

Thanks for response KarishmaB , I was under the impression that since earliest researchers were aware of rapidity, they might be hoping something more i.e certain result such as Chiao's experiment result in this case. But I understand the error in my reasoning. Thanks for pointing it out.

Sorry to be late to the party, but in case it's helpful: we've answered this question in this post. Check it out and let us know if you have any other questions!