Programmable Matter: The New Alchemy

Anonymous Kamath writes "IEEE Spectrum recently published an interview with aerospace-engineer-turned-science-fiction-author Wil McCarthy who's just written his first non-fiction book "Hacking Matter: Levitating Chairs, Quantum Mirages and the Infinite Weirdness of Programmable Atoms" proposing the application of quantum dot technology on a large scale thereby allowing one to control properties of materials at will. Another science fiction author laid down the principles of geostationary satellite communication half a century ago."

Comments

I've just finished reading this book and...

[mikerackhabit]

It's quite interesting. McCarthy tells a good story, and in the tradition of good science writing, introduces us to the interesting cast of characters that is working on this stuff.

That said, the book has more of a 'fiction' and less of a 'science' feel to it overall. This is a science in its very early stages and much of the theorizing McCarthy does comes off more as wishful thinking than anything that the data backs up. To his credit, McCarthy points this out and tries to be careful to let you know what's fact and what's speculation.

Overall it's a pretty interesting book though. I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys popular-science writing (in the vain of Gleick or Greene) and doesn't mind a little wild speculation thrown in.

For those of you who are interested in the applications for computing, he talks a very little bit about the possibilities in quantum computing that this opens up, but he actually explicitly states that he's not particularly interested in it. As such, most of the book is about matter that can change it's chemical properties and the more material science applications for it.

Ohh, and the last section of the book (actually and appendix) is all about the patent he filed for a device he came up with over the course of writing the book called a quantum well. It makes me a little nervous when someone's already trying to patent stuff that isn't realizable for years and years. Not a call to arms, but something to think about.

Origin of "programmable matter"

[Anonymous Coward]

I am actually Jonathan Vos Post, former Professor of Astronomy, Active Member of Science Fiction Writers of America, and software geek for 37 years (since 1966). I am extremely impressed by both the fiction and nonfiction on this subject by Wil McCarthy.

It happens that, as a side-effect of my writing perhaps the first Nanotechnology Ph.D. dissertation ("Molecular Cybernetics", 1977), I coined the terms of "programmable matter" and of "smart matter" by 1980. I used these terms in discussions I had with CS Professor/Science Fiction author Vernor Vinge, when the vingemiester was writing "Fire Upon the Deep."

I'm delighted that Wil McCarthy has taken the subject further, in his article in "Analog", his IEEE publication, and his wonderful novels.

He's such a good "hard Science Fiction" author that I feel a serious twinge of jealousy when I read him, same as I do for Sir Arthur C. Clarke, David Brin, Greg Benford, and a handfull of others.

Go you: read, and be enlightened.

Jonathan Vos Post
magicdragon.com
over 10,000,000 hits in 2002 alone

Speaking of lead to gold...

[Tyler Durden]

I was reading some discussion board a while ago when someone with a physics background claimed that it actually was possible to change lead to gold. All you had to do was take a thin strip of lead and bombard it with beta radiation for a while. He said it wasn't practical enough to make a profit out of, but it was possible.

Can anyone here confirm or deny this?

Re:Speaking of lead to gold...

[jamesc]

I was reading some discussion board a while ago when someone with a physics background claimed that it actually was possible to change lead to gold. All you had to do was take a thin strip of lead and bombard it with beta radiation for a while. He said it wasn't practical enough to make a profit out of, but it was possible.

Can anyone here confirm or deny this?

Hmmm.... Lead has an atomic number of 82, gold is 79. Beta radiation (really fast electrons) isn't generally used for transmutations. I suppose you could knock off some protons or neutrons off the lead nucleus with it, but it's not a good choice. If you're going to use classic transmutation, be aware that most of lead's radioisotopes decay via Electron Capture to Thallium or beta radiation to Bismuth.

A better choice would be to bombard 196Hg (mercury) with neutrons. That will decay via Electron Capture to 196Au (gold) with a half-life of 2.672 days. The catch? 196Hg is only 0.15% of naturally occuring mercury. You'd need to make a lot of neutrons, and would end up with very little gold amongst a stew of other isotopes, radioactive and stable.