The owners of this store
couldn't believe their eyes
when they checked their security footage
in the morning.
This man walked right through
their glass doors,
without slowing down or breaking them,
as if he were a ghost.
Then, moments later, he did it again,
and acted like it's completely normal.
Even though this specific video is
shrouded in mystery,
and is most likely the product of visual effects,
it doesn't mean that walking
through walls is impossible.
If everyone were able to figure it out,
then our world would become
a much different place.
You could take a lot of shortcuts to work.
You could walk in and out of
bank vaults as you pleased.
Or you could just feel stressed at home,
waiting for a friend, neighbor,
or a murderer to walk through your walls
whenever they want.
But before we get too carried away
with the possibilities of walking through walls,
let's figure out how we could do it,
scientifically speaking.
At first glance,
it seems that it should be pretty easy
to walk through walls.
After all, the walls, and our bodies,
and everything else around us are
made up of atoms.
And atoms are mostly empty space.
If you look at a typical diagram of an atom,
it kind of looks like our Solar System.
There are a bunch of electrons orbiting
the nucleus through empty space,
just like the planets orbit around our Sun.
You'd think that it should be
easy to pass our atoms through
all that empty space, right?
But it's not that simple.
In reality, the electrons surround the nucleus
less like the planets in our Solar System,
and more like the blades of a fan.
When the fan is turned off,
it appears that there is a lot of space
between the blades.
But when you turn it on
and the blades are moving,
it looks like they are everywhere
at the same time.
If you try and poke your finger
through those moving blades,
you'll quickly learn the concept of the
Pauli exclusion principle, which states that
two electrons cannot exist
in the same place at the same time.
Essentially, this principle is why
classic physics says
you can't walk through walls.
But luckily,
there's a whole other branch of physics
that's a little more open-minded.
Its name is
According to quantum physics,
it's incredibly difficult for scientists
to pinpoint the precise location of an electron.
So instead,
they map out the probabilities
of where it could be.
Viewing an electron like this means that
if you throw one at a barrier, like a wall,
there is always a tiny probability
that it will end up on the other side.
This theory is called quantum tunneling,
it's pretty complicated.
I think explaining it any more would
probably just lead to more confusion,
and it would just take more
time before we can start walking through walls.
The bottom line is that
quantum tunneling
could, theoretically, allow all the particles
in our bodies to pass through barriers.
And before we know it,
everyone could be walking through walls.
Sure, there would be a lot of people
using this ability with bad intentions.
They could use it to rob stores,
banks, and houses with relative ease.
They could sneak into locker rooms,
or get easy access to attack other people.
But there could be a lot of benefits.
Police could solve hostage situations
more easily,
by just entering a location
from anywhere they want,
and surprising the criminal by having
officers bombard them through the walls.
Archaeologists could walk straight into a
pyramid and check out the inside
without disturbing it.
Search and rescue parties might be able to
save more people, as they could easily
search through the rubble for
anyone still breathing.
And people could reach a whole new level
of intimacy, by literally merging with each other.
Hmm, maybe we should leave these two alone.
But in all honesty,
the odds of one person achieving this,
let alone many, would be astronomical.
You would need every single particle
in your body to tunnel at the same time,
and the odds of one particle doing this
are extremely low.
You'd probably have a better chance of
figuring out a way to make yourself invisible.
But that's a story for another WHAT IF.