Hacking Matter

Hacking Matter is a book by Wil McCarthy, in which he predicts that programmable matter will someday change our lives as much as any invention ever has. The ability 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.

Wil McCarthy visits the laboratories of major companies 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.

ISBN 046504428X - Hacking Matter: Levitating Chairs, Quantum Mirages, and the Infinite Weirdness of Programmable Atoms, Basic Books, 2003