Quantum Game

If you want to play a fun game and (optionally) learn about the curious behaviour of light, then Quantum Game is for you!

The nature of light has divided opinion in physics for literally thousands of years, from the time of Pythagoras and Aristotle in ancient Greece to the current day. In the seventeenth century, for example, Isaac Newton explained the visible spectrum by claiming that light is made of particles that carry different colours, whereas Christiaan Huygens claimed light is a collection of waves that behave just like water waves. As it turns out, both men were partly right.

Nowadays, it is common not to ask whether light is a particle or a wave because it can behave as either, depending on the context.

To find out more, you could read Six Impossible Things by John Gribbin, which I highly recommend, or Through Two Doors at Once by Anil Ananthaswamy (which is a much harder read). But if you want to put more fun into your learning then you could simply work your way through the levels of Quantum Game.

In the game, you need to place components so that the light beam produces a certain effect. The challenges start with situations that require only mirrors and beam-splitters (semi-silvered blocks that let some light through while also reflecting some of the light) – as shown below.

At Level 2 (shown above) you might want to pause for a moment and fire the laser several times. You will observe that the burst of light (whether it is a particle or a short length of wave) ends up at different detectors on various occasions. How can this be? Why does the light sometimes get detected in one place and sometimes another? This hints both at what is to follow in the game and at the strangeness of light itself.

It’s worth saying that some players will either not notice this effect of will simply ignore it in pursuit of the next level – and that’s fine if all you want to do is play the game. But by thinking about what you see, you will start to glimpse into the weird world of light.

It is also worth saying that within the Edexcel GCSE Physics course, there is no mention of the particle nature of light. This is a sad omission but it needn’t stop you having fun playing the game.

Enjoy!