Light has a constant speed in this model because it is transmitted at a constant rate by a quantum network that passes on what it does every cycle. Every point of a light wave is then a new wave source, as Huygens proposed, so light moves forward because the wave-front advances but the backward spread cancels out (3.1.2). Light as a processing wave can also restart at any point where it overloads the network, in what we call a physical event.
Yet while light moves constantly and occasionally restarts, matter as a standing wave that restarts constantly shouldn’t move. Light is like a boat with one engine that moves forward, while matter is like a boat whose engines oppose to keep it in place. But even a stationary boat with active engines spreads ripples around itself, so matter has a quantum distribution just as light does.
A stationary wave shouldn’t move but matter does, and even goes where light can’t. Light from a lamp in a metal box can’t escape, but an electron in an impenetrable Gaussian field can suddenly appear outside it, like a marble in a sealed bottle popping up outside it. In this quantum tunneling, an electron just arrives at a point without taking a path there, in what to us is a teleport.
How is this possible? Particles can’t tunnel, but quantum theory lets the electron wave function collapse and restart at any point in its distribution, just as it does for a photon wave hitting a screen. Quantum collapse occurs instantly and ignores any obstacles, so if an electron’s distribution extends beyond the Gaussian field, it can just arrive there. Note that light in a box can’t do this because its wave front reaches the walls as its distribution does, so it always teleports back into the box. Quantum collapse then explains quantum tunneling but particle models can’t.
To sum up, light waves move by point-to-point transfer but occasionally teleport to a screen point, while matter as a standing wave constantly restarting can only move by teleport. Quantum tunneling then isn’t just how matter sometimes moves, but how it always does. If light is a wave, and matter is a standing wave, both can teleport by quantum collapse when they restart, so the same rules apply to matter and light. But if light waves move inherently and matter doesn’t, why does light from a speeding rocket still leave at the speed of light? The answer lies in what Einstein’s relativity didn’t explain, which is how does matter change space and time?