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Title details for Hacking Matter by Wil Mccarthy - Available

Hacking Matter

by Wil Mccarthy
ebook
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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.
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Publisher: Basic Books

Kindle Book

  • Release date: August 1, 2008

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9780786723416
  • Release date: August 1, 2008

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9780786723416
  • File size: 3129 KB
  • Release date: August 1, 2008
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Formats

Kindle Book
OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

subjects

Technology Nonfiction

Languages

English

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.
Expand title description text
Technology Nonfiction
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