Editor’s Choice: Citizen Science: Gamers help solve quantum questions

This news piece overviews two games that engage citizen scientists in helping to develop quantum computing. I am partial to these projects because as a physicist, I have always been drawn in by the deep mysteries of quantum mechanics. And as a fun side note – as it turns out – for at least one of these projects, women tend to outperform men even though men spend more time playing the game.  — LFF —

Next time someone tells you computer games are a waste of time, there’s now a better response than saying you’re improving hand-eye co-ordination. Just say you’re helping science.

Increasingly, scientists are developing games where players’ moves help solve a problem or gather information for research.

Two Australian scientists, physicist Dr Simon Devitt, senior research scientist at the Centre for Emergent Matter Sciences in Tokyo, and Dr Austin Fowler, a quantum hardware engineer at Google in Santa Barbara, California, helped create a game called meQuanics, a quantum computing challenge designed to help develop the next generation of computers.

Photo Credit: Image from article – A screenshot from meQuanics, a new game helping to solve the challenges of quantum computing.

Source: Citizen Science: Gamers help solve quantum questions