Google Quantum AI team releases quantum mechanics mod for Minecraft

Shawn Knight

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Google’s Quantum AI Lab team in collaboration with MinecraftEdu and Caltech’s Institute of Quantum Information and Matter has released a mod for Minecraft that enables quantum physics in the game. Specifically, the qCraft mod adds new blocks that exhibit quantum entanglement, superposition and observer dependency in an effort to get today’s youth thinking about quantum physics.

In a Google+ post on the matter, the AI Lab team believes that future quantum computer scientists may derive from Minecraft. That may sound silly but as they point out, millions of kids are spending a ton of hours playing Minecraft and they aren’t just digging caves and fighting monsters. Instead, they are building space shuttles, assembly lines and even programmable computers – all in the name of experimentation and discovery.

As seen in the video above, qCraft users can “activate” a block simply by looking at it while others can disappear seemingly at any time. The team notes the full potential of what can be created with the mod is anyone’s guess and I imagine we will be seeing some pretty wicked creations in the not-too-distant future.

The AI Lab team said qCraft wasn’t a perfect science simulator but it is a fun way for gamers to experience some aspects of quantum mechanics outside of lab-based experiments and dense textbook examples.

The update is available for download as part of the Feed the Beast, Hexxit or Tekkit modpacks. It is also available as a direct download for Mac and PC, we’re told.

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I feel like the video is a meager example of what this is actually capable of for minecraft. I think people will make some truly mind blowing stuff with this. Well, mind blowing to minecrafters like me anyway. :p
 
The universe created through Minecraft... It might seem unimaginable now, but quantum processors will eventually accomplish some incredible things, like run computer simulated universes that are indistinguishable from our own “real” universe, even complete with simulated minds. There is a new book that discusses the implications of quantum computers on “simulations” (I.e., “On Computer Simulated Universes”). The author, Dr. Solomon, writes that if quantum computers can someday run simulated universes, then there must also must be a series of computer simulated universes contained within computer simulated universes. With many active simulations, there would be a range of physical properties differing from universe to universe. Universes with more positive physical traits to support life would produce better environments for more advanced civilizations to evolve to the point where they themselves would create their own computer simulated universes. And this process would continue. So over time, universes would evolve with the physics more favorable for life. He conjectures that universes, over time, have been naturally selected for particular physical properties, with an end result of creating more and more habitable universes. In other words, this could explain how the laws of physics might actually evolve inside a Matryoshkaverse (like the Russian wooden dolls with one or more dolls each nested inside another). We are on the verge of a technological revolution.
 
In the universe from which I come, that technological revolution already happened.
 
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