"What you see in Dishonored 2 is science fiction," says experimental physicist David Reilly. "it’s now over to the scientists and the engineers to follow that lead."
"It’s often the case that science fiction and our creative side...leads the way. What you see in Dishonored 2 is science-fiction, but imagining what kind of powers we might want…it’s now over to the scientists and the engineers to follow that lead and say, 'Okay, how do we actually create such a technology. Is it possible? What do we need?'"
- Prof. David Reilly, leader of the Quantum Nanoscience Laboratory in the School of Physics at Sydney.
The intersection of science and fiction sees a lot of traffic in both directions. Game developers often look to scientists for guidance when designing virtual worlds that mimic aspects of the real one, and scientists in turn often draw inspiration from games and other forms of media when conducting their research.
That's something worth remembering as a game developer, that your work can not only entertain but potentially inspire experts to ask new questions and chase fresh lines of research. For example, there's an interesting interview with experimental physicist David Reilly over on Finder today that digs into how games (specifically Arkane's upcoming Dishonored 2) can help people visualize and understand complex topics like time dilation and quantum teleportation.
"Where we stand today in terms of teleportation is it’s not total nonsense. It’s not a pipedream. We can teleport the quantum state of atoms and photons of light of electron states," said Reilly. "That’s not the quite the kind of teleportation when you think of Star Trek or what’s happening in Dishonored 2, but there is some basis in reality, the idea that I could recreate the entire quantum state of an object at some distance."
The full interview with Reilly, who is apparently a big fan of Dishonored 2 ("given my day job as a quantum physicist, when I play the game it certainly reminds me of quantum-inspired ideas") can be read in full over on Finder.
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