8 Iconic Doctor Who Things That Scientists Say Are Real

2. Quantum Locking Weeping Angels

The Weeping Angels, The Lonely Assassins, the only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely, and possibly one of the most terrifying Doctor Who monsters. Their major defence mechanism is that they become "quantum locked" whenever they are observed, freezing them in time and space and making them impossible to kill. I don't mean to worry you or anything, but that's totally plausible. Physicists at Cornell University have been messing around with quantum particles and have actually managed to "quantum lock" them. How do they do this? Why, by constantly observing them, of course. Basically, in quantum physics, when you observe a particle, you change its behaviour. The researchers trapped ultracold rubidium atoms in something called an "optical lattice". Think of it as a sort of egg box shaped surface with peaks and troughs and with the atoms trapped in the low-energy troughs. The atoms can sometimes escape these troughs when you're not looking by "quantum tunnelling" which can make them appear as though they have just passed through an impassable barrier almost instantaneously. However, by constantly observing them, the physicists were able to stop them doing this and keep them frozen in place. Sound familiar? Perhaps Weeping Angels are made of some kind of supercooled quantum material then? The Doctor does call them "creatures of the abstract" after all. Can't get much more abstract than quantum mechanics. So, Weeping Angels are real, but you'll be fine so long as you don't blink.