Quantum Party

The board has 4 rows w/10 spaces each representing a player’s lab bench. Each player places their cat standee at the start of their bench then conducts one of 4 classic modern physics experiments by drawing a card for the experiment and resolving it. Most cards move your cat and cats move a different way for each experiment. If you reach the end of a bench, take a party hat. First to get 4 hats wins.

Blackbody Radiation Experiment. Includes die with faces 0/black, 2 red/1, 2 green/2, and 1 blue/3. Roll the dice to see what color photon comes out of the blackbody oven. The rarer the photon, the more your cat advances.

Rutherford Gold Foil Experiment. Includes spinner w/4 spaces: red/1 (takes up half of circumference), 2 gold/2 spaces (each takes up 1/6 of the circumference), and blue/3 (takes up 1/6 of the circumference). Spin the spinner to see in what direction your alpha particle scattered. The rarer the outcome, the farther you can advance.

Double-Slit experiment. Includes 2 dice each w/3 white (0/1/2) and 3 black (0/1/2) faces. Roll both to see if your electron ends up in a region of constructive or destructive interference. If faces are same color (constructive interference), add them. If different, subtract the smaller from the larger.

Photoelectric Effect. Includes 3 dice w/faces: red/1000 Kelvin (move 1 space), green/3000K (move 2 spaces), and blue/200k (move 3 spaces). Roll the dice to see what color lamp your can has chosen. Some colors of light will eject electrons from the metal at higher velocity, meaning your cat can advance further.

Each deck consists of 10 “Run the Experiment” cards (if you draw one, run the experiment as above) plus a number of special cards. If you draw the Wolfgang Pauli card, Pauli shows up to observe and breaks your experiment. “Save this Card” allows you to place a note on the door to direct auli to another room. “Ummm???” – someone measure the momentum of your cat so precisely that its position is uncertain. Roll 1 double-slit die and move forward if you roll white and backward if you roll black. “Rawr!” – you encounter a potential energy barrier and have a 50% chance to quantum tunnel through it (by rolling double-slit die as above). “Yikes!”: your cat ruins the experiment so you don’t move. “Hooray”: your cat did something to help you – move again.