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"Hacking Matter..." by Will McCarthy — Quantum dots and programmable matter.
Originally posted on sciy.org by Ron Anastasia on Wed 03 Jan 2007 07:00 PM PST
"Hacking Matter:
Levitating Chairs, Quantum Mirages, and the Infinite Weirdness of Programmable Atoms"
by Wil McCarthy
In 1962, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the author of the book "2001: A Space Odyssey," formulated what has become known as "Clarke's Third Law" of technological development:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
This remarkable book is about a technology that truly does seem like magic: a world where our wishes will literally be able to command matter, an alchemy that works. The old adage "Be careful what you wish" may soon take on a whole new meaning ...
... "Magic" has been technology's partner from the very beginning — a similar attempt to grasp and shape the forces of the world... We use the levers and pulleys of technology to shape our world, but what we really want is a world that obeys our spoken commands and reconfigures itself to our unvoiced wishes. What we really want — what we've always wanted — is magic.
The future is where these two notions converge. If matter can work and think, can it also be made to obey, at some fundamental, near-magical level? The answer I will give here is not a simple yes or no, but a survey of a class of electronic components called "quantum dots" and their possible application to the fields of computing and materials science.
This is not a book about "nanotechnology" in any of its popular incarnations. Nor will I spend much time discussing the nearer-term technology of microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS, which has already found its way into some applications. The future almost certainly holds myriad uses for both of these, but by the time they find their way into the real world, they many wind up looking less magical than a humble television screen, which after all can change its appearance instantly and completely. But there may be a truly programmable substance in our future that is capable of changing its apparent physical and chemical properties as easily as a TV screen changes color. Call it programmable matter. ...
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