Stepping Into Another World

Put on a virtual-reality headset, and the room around you disappears. Suddenly you are standing on the surface of the moon, walking through an ancient palace, or floating deep beneath the ocean. Virtual reality, usually called VR, uses screens placed close to the eyes, together with sound and motion sensors, to create the powerful illusion of being somewhere else entirely. Although many people first meet VR through games, its most valuable uses may lie elsewhere. Surgeons can rehearse a complicated operation many times before they ever touch a real patient. Trainee pilots and firefighters practise dangerous situations in complete safety. Architects walk clients through a building that exists only as a design, allowing changes to be made long before construction begins. The technology is also reshaping how we connect with one another. Colleagues scattered across different continents can gather in a shared virtual room as though they were sitting at the same table. Some hospitals even use gentle VR experiences to distract patients from pain. Nevertheless, questions remain. Long sessions can cause dizziness and headaches, and some experts worry that spending too much time in artificial worlds may weaken our ties to the real one. As the headsets grow lighter and cheaper, society will have to decide how deeply it wishes to blur the line between the virtual and the real.