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The Weeping Angels
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Reviews
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The Weeping Angels
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Wibbly-Wobbly Quantum-Wantum by David Gottner 22/5/11
The Weeping Angels are without a doubt the coolest new monsters introduced in New Who. It's not just the scary factor that we see in the three episodes where they appear, but the "what if" concept of how a macroscopic object would behave if it was subject to rules that govern the quantum world. In this regard, it seems to harken back to the early days of classic Who where there was also some intent to add some educational content.
I found the three episodes exciting in that they do a good job in dramatizing the quantum world (until we get to Flesh and Stone, that is, more on that below.) So, without further ado, here's an analysis of all three episodes from a quantum science perspective.
Blink: Blink really just introduces the premise. Whenever an Angel is observed, it is always a stone statue. When it is not observed, it can move; presumably it is not made of stone, but rather is in a "superposition of eigenstates". What's that you ask? Well I asked Dr. #10 the question, and he told me that it is a "Wibbly-Wobbly Quantum-Wantum ball." Actually, what happens when an Angel (or photon) is not observed is that it exists in all possible states at once! For example, a photon of light from a light source to the retina of your eye will theoretically take all possible paths at once. However, once you observe the photon, you will always measure it as having taken only one path. An Angel, if you could see it unobserved (something logically impossible, of course) would probably look something like a whirling dervish on steroids (i.e. a Wibbly-Wobbly Quantum-Wantum gray thingie.)
The Time of Angels. This episode introduces what is called the "Quantum Measurement Problem." Simply stated, the issue is this: What exactly qualifies as an "observer" and an "observation"? In the story, it is represented when Amy is looking at an Angel in the hold via a security camera that is continuously recording the Angel and displaying the image on a monitor. Now there is a question (still unresolved, by the way) on what is an "observation" in this instance. Most physicists would say that the camera counts an an observer of the Angel, therefore the Angel would be frozen as a statue as long as there is light in the hold and the camera is functional. In this case Amy can safely look away, change the channel on the monitor to her Twitter account, etc. However, there are some physicists who do believe that an Angel (or photon) will not settle into a definite state unless there is a conscious observer (i.e. Amy) to watch the Angel. So, the matter is not settled, and I was watching this episode on the edge of my seat because I was curious how the show would resolve the "Measurement Problem" When it was decided in favor of Amy needing to watch the Angel (that is the observer must be conscious, a camera won't do at all), I thought that was way cool, since that is probably the coolest of all the quantum interpretations out there...
Flesh and Stone: Here is the disappointing episode, since the writers reveal their ignorance of the nature of the weeping Angels (not a real surprise, but hey). Towards the end, when the Angels are seen to be moving like ponderous stone statues, it is clear the writers do not have the concept down. It is internally consistent to the story in that when the camera shows the Angels moving, there are no characters in the story that can see them move, but the problem is that it just does not work that way. The Angels would be "moving" so fast as to be invisible to a meta-observer (i.e. the viewer of the story itself), and at best they could be depicted as some kind of pulsating energy darting about the screen (the "Quantum-Wantum ball"). Showing them as a blur of motion would be far more accurate. (By the way, "moving" is in quotes because the angels don't "move" when they are not observed. They exist in all possible configurations, so they occupy all possible places at once. Until you look.)
In short, there is a really cool new Doctor Who monster, with three strong stories to its credit, marred slightly by poor execution in the third story, Flesh and Stone.