The world we experience is governed by classical physics. How we move, where we are, and how fast we’re going are all determined by the classical assumption that we can only exist in one place at any one moment in time.

But in the quantum world, the behavior of individual atoms is governed by the eerie principle that a particle’s location is a probability. An atom, for instance, has a certain chance of being in one location and another chance of being at another location, at the same exact time.

When particles interact, purely as a consequence of these quantum effects, a host of odd phenomena should ensue. But observing such purely quantum mechanical behavior of interacting particles amid the overwhelming noise of the classical world is a tricky undertaking.

The universe is governed by two sets of seemingly incompatible laws of physics – there’s the classical physics we’re used to on our scale, and the spooky world of quantum physics on the atomic scale. MIT physicists have now observed the moment atoms switch from one to the other, as they form intriguing “quantum tornadoes.”

Things that seem impossible to our everyday understanding of the world are perfectly possible in quantum physics. Particles can essentially exist in multiple places at once, for instance, or tunnel through barriers, or share information across vast distances instantly.

These and other odd phenomena can arise as particles interact with each other, but frustratingly the overarching world of classical physics can interfere and make it hard to study these fragile interactions. One way to amplify quantum effects is to cool atoms right down to a fraction above absolute zero, creating a state of matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) that can exhibit quantum properties on a larger, visible scale.