Hacking Matter: Levitating Chairs, Quantum Mirages, and the Infinite Weirdness of Programmable Atoms

I have no degrees in physics, just a bit of curiosity and for me this book was wonderful. A very well written (for laymen) brief on a technology that is just over the horizon. If only half the apllications he describes are realized, wellstone will change our lives. I was left with only one (whimsical) question about wellstone; could you build a ringword with it?

You can also download this book free at http://www.wilmccarthy.com/HackingMatterMultimediaEdition.pdf

One can poke several holes into a lot of the stuff that is discussed in the book - especially that this technology (using quantum dots to create artificial matter that emulates real matter) is so far away as to be in the realm of sci-fi. However -inspite of all those caveats - the author does a great job of explaining the potential of this technology. His enthusiasm is contagious - and one really wishes that this technology advances at a faster pace. I enjoyed it thoroughly - and compliment the author on his well-researched and well presented ideas.

I purchased this book for the title alone, while shelf-browsing at ETcon 2003; to see a non-fiction book discussing programmable matter on the cover was enough to catch my attention.I found it a casual, yet enjoyable read; it threads gently through the prerequisite background, glossing over the specific details to keep the primary focus of the book intact; as it turned out, this didn't affect my enjoyment at all, while providing lots of jumping-off points for the interested observer to research further.Managing to not get distracted by the fact that such things as "electron shells" and "thermochromatics", it introduces the reader (educated as they may or may not be) to the concept of a kind of material whose properties can be changed at will, by humans (not just nature). The core concept at hand is "quantum dots", and the text returns over and over again to this, diverging occasionally to provide anecdotes, or ways these semi-magical materials have already been (or soon, could be) used.Overall, I felt the book a good read; if you're looking for an introduction into the world of quantum dots, dynamically modifiable materials, and science the likes of which one would formerly have expected from science fiction. It's not a book in which can be found explicit technical details, though there's more than a hundred references in the end-of-book bibliography; for that alone, it would be a perfect entry point for research.Highly recommended.

McCarthy is a scientist and inventor, a journalist/columnist, and also a wild-eyed science fiction writer. It all comes together in this package, where he unleashes compelling new science, explaining the fundamentals in easy language, and then rockets off to the future to show us what it all means.Programmable matter (whose composition can be converted from lead to gold or any other substance at the click of a mouse) is coming, and will change nearly every aspect of our lives. If you want to prepare for the future of technology, you had better read this book!