Hacking Matter Levitating Chairs Quantum

Programmable matter is probably not the next technological revolution, nor even perhaps the one after that. But it's coming, and when it does, it will change our lives as much as any invention ever has. Imagine being able to program matter itself-to change it, with the click of a cursor, from hard to soft, from paper to stone, from fluorescent to super-reflective to invisible. Supported by companies ranging from Levi Strauss to IBM and the Defense Department, solid-state physicists in laboratories at MIT, Harvard, Sun Microsystems, and elsewhere are currently creating arrays of microscopic devices called "quantum dots" that are capable of acting like programmable atoms. They can be configured electronically to replicate the properties of any known atom and then can be changed, as fast as an electrical signal can travel, to have the properties of a different atom. Soon it will be possible not only to engineer into solid matter such unnatural properties as variable magnetism, programmable flavors, or centuple bonds far stronger than diamond, but also to change these properties at will. Wil McCarthy visits the laboratories and talks with the researchers who are developing this extraordinary technology; describes how they are learning to control its electronic, optical, thermal, magnetic, and mechanical properties; and tells us where all this will lead. The possibilities are truly magical.

"When he experimented with lightnng, Ben Franklin mused that electricity 'might someday prove of use'. Now comes Wil McCarthy, offering a peek at something so potentially transforming, our grandchildren may build civilizations around it. If even a few of these possibilities come true, you'll always remember that you first read about it here." David Brin, author of The Transparant Society

"Programmable substances and futuristic computers will revolutionize our lives and allow us to soar beyond the limits of our intuition. No book better describes the impact of hypercomputing and the dazzling wealth of new materials coming our way better than Hacking Matter." Clifford A. Pickover, author of The Mathematics of Oz

Why programmable atoms are the ultimate killer app.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 175-183) and index.

Wil McCarthy is a novelist, the science columnist for the SciFi channel, and the Chief Technology Officer for Galileo Shipyards, an aerospace research corporation. Hacking Matter is an expansion of an article that appeared in Wired in October 2001. He lives in Lakewood, Colorado.