Something beyond normal common sense and classical physics is necessary to describe the fundamental processes inside atoms and nuclei. We can see how, in the space-time diagram shown in Figure 2. An electron-positron pair is created at C by a quantum fluctuation of the vacuum. The positron annihilates an electron at A, undoing the original vacuum fluctuation so that there is zero net-energy change. The positron annihilates the original electron at point A while the electron from the pair continues past point B. Since all electrons are indistinguishable, it appears as if the original electron has jumped instantaneously from A to B. In Figure 2, all the particles involved follow definite paths.
None moves faster than the speed of light.
B. No experiment can be performed in which the electron on the left can be distinguished from the one on the right. Furthermore, since the quantum jump is random, no signal or other causal effect is superluminally transmitted. On the other hand, a deterministic theory based on subquantum forces or hidden variables is necessarily superluminal. Thus quantum mechanics, as conventionally practiced, describes quantum leaps without too drastic a quantum leap beyond common sense. Certainly no mystical assertions are justified by any observations concerning quantum processes.