Abstract
We describe the Meta-Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA), the first professional scientific organization based exclusively in virtual worlds (VWs). The goals of MICA are to explore the utility of the emerging VR and VWs technologies for scientific and scholarly work in general, and to facilitate and accelerate their adoption by the scientific research community. MICA itself is an experiment in academic and scientific practices enabled by the immersive VR technologies. We describe the current and planned activities and research directions of MICA, and offer some thoughts as to what the future developments in this arena may be.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bainbridge, W.S.: The Scientific Research Potential of Virtual Worlds. Science 317, 472–476 (2007)
Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, http://jvwresearch.org/
TerraNova blog, various authors, http://terranova.blogs.com/
Boellstorff, T.: Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton University Press, Princeton (2008)
Convergence of the Real and the Virtual, the first scientific conference held inside World of Warcraft, May 9-11 (2008), http://mysite.verizon.net/wsbainbridge/convergence.htm
Hut, P.: Virtual Laboratories. Prog. Theor. Phys. Suppl. 164, 38–53 (2006)
Hut, P.: Virtual Laboratories and Virtual Worlds. In: Vesperini, E., et al. (eds.) Proc. IAU Symp. 246, Dynamical Evolution of Dense Stellar Systems, pp. 447–456. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2008)
The Meta-Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA), http://www.mica-vw.org/
Second Life, http://secondlife.com/
Qwaq Forums, http://www.qwaq.com/
MICA SL island, StellaNova, http://slurl.com/secondlife/StellaNova/126/125/28
Hut, P., McMillan, S. (eds.): The Use of Supercomputers in Stellar Dynamics. Springer, New York (1986)
Hut, P., Makino, J., McMillan, S.: Modelling the Evolution of Globular Star Clusters. Nature 363, 31–35 (1988)
The Art of Computational Science, http://www.ArtCompSci.org
The Starlab Project, http://www.ids.ias.edu/~starlab
MUSE: a Multiscale Multiphysics Scientific Environment, http://muse.li
Hut, P., Mineshige, S., Heggie, D., Makino, J.: Modeling Dense Stellar Systems. Prog. Theor. Phys. 118, 187–209 (2007)
OpenSim project, http://opensimulator.org/
SL Data Visualization wiki, http://sldataviz.pbwiki.com/
Bourke, P.: Evaluating Second Life as a Tool for Collaborative Scientific Visualization. In: Computer Games and Allied Technology 2008 conf. (2008), http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/papers/cgat08/
Johnson, A., Ames, J., Farr, W.: The MICASim plugin (2008), http://code.google.com/p/micasim/
Farr, W., Hut, P., Johnson, A., Ames, J.: An Experiment in Using Virtual Worlds for Scientific Visualization (2009) (paper in prep.)
ScienceSim project wiki, http://sciencesim.com/
Virtual World Interoperability wiki, http://vwinterop.wikidot.com/
The U.S. National Virtual Observatory, http://www.us-vo.org/
The International Virtual Observatory Alliance, http://www.ivoa.net/
Djorgovski, S.G., Williams, R.: Virtual Observatory: From Concept to Implementation. ASP Conf. Ser. 345, 517–530 (2005)
Roco, M., Bainbridge, W. (eds.): Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance: Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology, and Cognitive Science, NSF report. National Science Foundation, Arlington (2002)
Bainbridge, W., Roco, M. (eds.): Managing Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno Innovations: Converging Technologies in Society, NSF report. National Science Foundation, Arlington (2005)
Second Life Education Wiki, http://simteach.com/
The Immersive Education Initiative, http://immersiveeducation.org/
SciLands Virtual Continent, http://www.scilands.org/
MICA popular lectures series, http://mica-vw.org/wiki/index.php/Popular_Talks
Wing, J.: Computational Thinking. Comm. ACM 49, 33–35 (2006)
Szalay, A., Gray, J.: The World-Wide Telescope. Science 293, 2037–2040 (2001)
Szalay, A., Gray, J.: Science in an Exponential World. Nature 440, 15–16 (2006)
Emmott, S. (ed.): Towards 2020 Science. Microsoft Research Publ. (2006), http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/cambridge/projects/towards2020science/
Djorgovski, S.G.: Virtual Astronomy, Information Technology, and the New Scientific Methodology. In: Di Gesu, V., Tegolo, D. (eds.) Proc. CAMP 2005: Computer Architectures for Machine Perception, IEEE Conf. Proc., pp. 125–132 (2005)
Bell, G., Hey, T., Szalay, A.: Beyond the Data Deluge. Science 232, 1297–1298 (2009)
Farr, W., Hut, P., Ames, J.: An Experiment in Using Virtual Worlds for Scientific Visualization of Self-Gravitating Systems. JVWR (in press, 2009)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 ICST Institute for Computer Science, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering
About this paper
Cite this paper
Djorgovski, S.G. et al. (2010). Exploring the Use of Virtual Worlds as a Scientific Research Platform: The Meta-Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA). In: Lehmann-Grube, F., Sablatnig, J. (eds) Facets of Virtual Environments. FaVE 2009. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 33. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11743-5_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11743-5_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-11742-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-11743-5
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)