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Where Science and Video Games Meet

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Colin Milburn holds a video game console
In writing the book, Professor Colin Milburn explored, among other subjects, his own experiences as a winged avatar in the Second Life virtual world. Karin Higgins/嘿嘿视频 photo

Professor Colin Milburn takes readers in his new book on a video game-inspired journey through a world that is part science, part science fiction and mostly the place where the two converge.

How Gaming Affects Science

Jeffrey Day/嘿嘿视频 video
(1 min 18 sec)

In Mondo Nano: Fun and Games in the World of Digital Matter (Duke University Press, $28.95 paperback, $23.93 Kindle, $99.93 cloth, 424 pages), Milburn, who holds the , opens with the world鈥檚 smallest stop-motion film, .

Much of the book is connected to nanotechnology 鈥 the study and application of extremely small things. But there鈥檚 also a lot of 鈥渕ondo鈥 鈥 slang for extreme, big and striking, with connotations of being cool.

Nanotechnology, comic books and avatars

Among the topics the Milburn explores are:

  • 鈥淣anosoccer鈥 played on a field the size of a grain of rice
  • Developments in nanotechnology that promise to give anyone Spider-Man鈥檚 climbing ability
  • Comic books and video games that have inspired military applications of nanotechnology
  • 鈥淣anoputians鈥 鈥 tiny molecular toys produced by scientific whimsy but representing serious chemistry
  • Shakespeare as a philosopher of the molecular sciences and
  • His own experiences 鈥 as a winged avatar 鈥 in the Second Life virtual world.

How gaming and science interact

Milburn sees the book as a frolic though the high-tech world while seriously examining how games and science interact.

鈥淚 wanted the book to have a multitude of examples to show how much fun and games affect the way science is done,鈥 says Milburn, a professor of  as well as , and. 鈥淚t looks at developments in both popular culture and experimental research to see how game technologies are changing our high-tech society.鈥

He is associated with the , where a number of 嘿嘿视频 faculty members create video and gaming-connected projects.

Fun in lab and living room

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The 鈥渇un and games鈥 approach can often produce the best results.

鈥淪ome of the most important scientific breakthroughs come from loosening up and playing with ideas,鈥 Milburn says. 鈥淚 think we need to take fun seriously and not discredit what makes games enjoyable. Playing games in the lab or in the living room can trigger innovation. I see this as exactly the kind of thing that brings forth the greatest breakthroughs.鈥

For example, gamers have made significant contributions serving as 鈥渃itizen scientists鈥 in projects like 鈥,鈥 an online game about protein folding, a technique that has disease-treatment applications.

Milburn himself had to become a dedicated gamer to write the book.

鈥淰ideo games today are so sophisticated and smart,鈥 Milburn says. 鈥淚 had to immerse myself to understand how they were growing and transforming.鈥

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