The idea of programmable matter occurred to me in 1998.I was working on a short story that later evolved into a novel called The Collapsium and eventually into a series of books collectively known as The Queendom of Sol, a future history of the solar system (and some parts beyond). As Arthur C. Clarke famously said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," so in my books I sought to include technologies that felt like magic but had a basis in real science. Programmable matter certainly fit the "magic" part. This marvelous substance could be used to build anything from a chair to a spaceship and could transform itself almost instantly. A table could behave as if it were made out of gold one moment, out of diamond the next. The "real science" part came from tiny semiconductor objects known as quantum dots, which confine electrons to a small space. Here's the cool part: As far as the electrons are concerned, this environment is almost the same as the one they experience while bound in an orbit around an atomic nucleus. So the electrons behave as if they were part of an atom-exactly which type of atom depends on the size and shape of the dot, as well as the number of electrons pumped in or out of it. Change the number of electrons and you can switch from one atomlike electron structure into another.
展开▼
机译：可编程物质的想法于1998年出现在我的脑海里。以及其他部分）。正如亚瑟·克拉克（Arthur C. Clarke）所说的那样：“任何足够先进的技术都无法与魔术区分开。”因此，在我的书中，我试图包括感觉像魔术但在真实科学中具有基础的技术。可编程的东西当然适合“魔术”部分。这种奇妙的物质可以用来建造从椅子到宇宙飞船的任何东西，并且可以几乎立即转变自身。一张桌子的表现就好像是一刻是用金子制成的，下一刻是用钻石制成的一样。 “真实科学”部分来自被称为量子点的微小半导体物体，这些物体将电子限制在一个很小的空间中。这里是最酷的部分：就电子而言，这种环境几乎与它们束缚在原子核周围的轨道时所经历的环境相同。因此，电子的行为就好像它们是原子的一部分一样，确切地说，哪种原子类型取决于点的大小和形状以及泵入或泵出该点的电子数量。改变电子数量，您可以从一种原子状的电子结构转换为另一种。
展开▼
