Quantum physics vs. classical physics: introducing the basics with a virtual reality game

Unlike classical physics, quantum physics is harder to ex-plain, as it involves very small scales and phenomena that are not visibleto the naked eye. Understanding the differences between classical andquantum physics is difficult, especially for children, who cannot graspthe subtleties conveyed in complicated formulae.We propose to achieve this in a playful and immersive manner, which is amore familiar and convenient way to introduce children to new concepts.For this we developedSave Schr #odinger's Cat, a puzzle game in virtualreality featuring a classical physics mode and a quantum physics mode.As virtual objects and phenomena behave differently in each mode, thismechanic encourages players to toggle between modes, in order to ex-plore the differences between quantum and classical physics in an immer-sive, entertaining and challenging way. A preliminary evaluation showedthat players could better identify various distinguishing features of eithermode.

@InProceedings { DHLMSZAB19,
  author       = "Dorland, Bob and Hal, Lennard van and Lageweg, Stanley and Mulder, Jurgen and Schreuder, Rinke and Zaidi, Amir
                  and Alderliesten, David and Bidarra, Rafael",
  title        = "Quantum physics vs. classical physics: introducing the basics with a virtual reality game",
  booktitle    = "Games and Learning Alliance",
  series       = "LNCS",
  volume       = "11899",
  pages        = "383--393",
  year         = "2019",
  publisher    = "Springer International Publishing",
  note         = "8th International Conference GALA 2019, Athens, Greece, November 27-29, 2019",
  url          = "http://graphics.tudelft.nl/Publications-new/2019/DHLMSZAB19"
}