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A bit of a hypothetical situation for y'all here.

Let's say you want to test a video game's accurateness with regards to its physics; by seeing how closely the game's physics matches up with real-life physics (uses the same equations, and relations).

You don't have access to any of the game's code or physics processing, so you need to do it through experimentation. To narrow it down a bit more, you decide on using the gravity mechanics as a metric for the game's accurateness.

So you create two setups in game, and in real life; a free-fall setup, and a pendulum setup. Mass units are identical in real-life and in-game (kg), as are any distance units (m). You have ways to measure all properties in the game as in real-life (mass, distance etc.).

What would be your strategy to scientifically reach a conclusion about the game's accurateness to reality? Would you simply see if the 'g' values are identical in both the game and real-life? Or how would you go about it?

A complicated question, but would be interesting if anyone reaches a different conclusion than me. You can just put down any brainstorming or ideas, no need for fully formed proofed answers.

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  • $\begingroup$ I'm don't think it's a duplicate, but I recently answered this question here that explains how one might go about measuring physical quantities in video games that you might be interested in. $\endgroup$
    – Philip
    Commented Oct 20, 2020 at 18:38
  • $\begingroup$ Good question, but is it by any chance a homework exercise, and if it is then please add the homework tag. $\endgroup$
    – Andrew Steane
    Commented Oct 20, 2020 at 19:01
  • $\begingroup$ First you need a sense of scale, which some games provide and some not. A minecraft block is supposed to be 1m by 1m by 1m for example. $\endgroup$
    – jalex
    Commented Oct 20, 2020 at 19:14
  • $\begingroup$ @Philip Oh damn, that's a really interesting way I've never even thought of, I'll give that a look. $\endgroup$
    – Maruwan
    Commented Oct 21, 2020 at 2:20
  • $\begingroup$ @AndrewSteane I wish it was homework haha, I'm just fascinated by games, like physics and am considering a career related to computer science. I'm expanding my theory better and best case scenario, I have something extra for my college essay. $\endgroup$
    – Maruwan
    Commented Oct 21, 2020 at 2:22

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What you're describing is simply experimental replication - the fact that this occurs in a virtual world is actually quite irrelevant. You can use the exact same methodology that you'd use to replicate any scientific experiment. Build whatever experimental setup you like, whether that's a falling object or a pendulum or something else. Test it in the real world and record your relevant observations of object position per time, etc. Now build the same apparatus in the virtual world and run the experiment again. If you've set up the experiment properly, and the same physical laws hold, you will get the exact same result - your real-world experiment will perfectly predict the outcome of the virtual experiment. If not, there is either a problem with your experiment, or with the consistency of the physical laws.

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