[Phys-L] Re: Physics/Engineering Video Game

[Aaron Titus <titus@MAILAPS.ORG>]

On May 16, 2005, at 11:24 PM, Brian Whatcott wrote:

> "...realistic physics will take games & movies to an
> entire new level in the near future ....

Realistic physics also makes games too difficult. Consider, for
example, the asteroids game. While the linear motion is physically
correct, the rotational motion is not (considering a single thruster
firing tangentially).

One of my CS students has built a game more sophisticated then
asteroids. When he gave the ship correct rotational motion, the game
became much too difficult to play, so he took it out.


> a friend tipped me off to this excellent physics
> simulation for bridge building.  you build the
> bridge using different elements eg light steel,
> heavy steel, cable, roadway. then you run a train
> across it. fascinating !! really entertaining!! I haven't
> played a video game this much in a long,long time

My CS students play this game and showed it to me. They loved it.

I do agree with one thing:  games are highly motivational (especially
for the younger generation) and can possibly be very useful in
teaching physics and turning students on to physics. I just hope that
when students do experiments and solve problems, they can handle the
detail-oriented, tedious nature of measurement and design. Then
again, maybe these features can be built into games and thus teach
students to pay attention to details. After all, we do want to
produce students who can build a bridge so that it doesn't collapse.

One gripe I have about games is that students learn to do things by
trial and error. I'm not sure that this is an entirely bad thing. For
example, I've seen excellent programmers who use this method somewhat
efficiently to work out bugs. On the other hand, as scientists we
also value the ability to make a prediction and be confident of that
prediction before the experiment is carried out.

Aaron
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