Can video games help us better understand quantum mechanics?
newscientist.comCan video games help us better understand quantum mechanics?The world of quantum video games is vast – there are hundreds that are either inspired by quantum mechanics or use quantum computers in their development. Columnist Karmela Padavic-Callaghan explores how these could change our understanding of quantum physics, or even help us make better devices✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50Part of the MichaelFilter
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Unlock the full reading · $5.50 →New Scientist surveys the growing field of quantum video games, from Tetris-inspired Quantris to horror title Quantum Backrooms, where superposition and observation become game mechanics. While quantum computers aren't yet powerful enough to run games in real time, developers use them in design pipelines and simulators to translate counterintuitive physics into playable systems. The piece raises a two-way question: what can quantum computing do for games, and what can games do for quantum literacy?
Teaching:
• Use the observation-collapses-superposition mechanic as an analogy for how attention in practice collapses possibility into a single breath, drishti, or vinyasa
• Frame Mysore room as a quantum-like environment: each student's state is partly undetermined until the teacher observes and intervenes
• Cue students that measurement changes the system, the way checking alignment mid-pose subtly alters the pose itself
• Theme a week on superposition and commitment: hovering between options costs energy; landing the block lets the next one fall
Writing seeds:
• Essay seed: Quantris and the Mysore room, why observation is a teaching act, not a neutral one
• Short post: practice as a game with hidden state, and why rules literacy beats outcome chasing
• Newsletter draft: what game designers using quantum hardware teach us about designing daily practice constraints
• Long essay: simulators all the way down, why most practitioners run a simulated Ashtanga before they ever touch the real thing
Idea map:
• Extends systems literacy thesis: quantum games are a literacy tool for an opaque system, like asana is a literacy tool for the nervous system
• Connects to his attention writing: observation as a generative, not passive, act
• Reinforces practice-as-method: rules and constraints produce understanding that explanation cannot
• Bridges ashtanga.tech functional framing with theyoga.club daily ritual, both are interfaces over a harder-to-see substrate
Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2532015-can-video-games-help-us-better-understand-quantum-mechanics/
Teaching:
• Use the observation-collapses-superposition mechanic as an analogy for how attention in practice collapses possibility into a single breath, drishti, or vinyasa
• Frame Mysore room as a quantum-like environment: each student's state is partly undetermined until the teacher observes and intervenes
• Cue students that measurement changes the system, the way checking alignment mid-pose subtly alters the pose itself
• Theme a week on superposition and commitment: hovering between options costs energy; landing the block lets the next one fall
Writing seeds:
• Essay seed: Quantris and the Mysore room, why observation is a teaching act, not a neutral one
• Short post: practice as a game with hidden state, and why rules literacy beats outcome chasing
• Newsletter draft: what game designers using quantum hardware teach us about designing daily practice constraints
• Long essay: simulators all the way down, why most practitioners run a simulated Ashtanga before they ever touch the real thing
Idea map:
• Extends systems literacy thesis: quantum games are a literacy tool for an opaque system, like asana is a literacy tool for the nervous system
• Connects to his attention writing: observation as a generative, not passive, act
• Reinforces practice-as-method: rules and constraints produce understanding that explanation cannot
• Bridges ashtanga.tech functional framing with theyoga.club daily ritual, both are interfaces over a harder-to-see substrate
Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2532015-can-video-games-help-us-better-understand-quantum-mechanics/
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