This is all about quantum dots ( which I think should be called quantum cells ) and it doesn't skip on details ( )

This is all about quantum dots ( which I think should be called quantum cells ) and it doesn't skip on details ( )

Pulisher's Blurb: "Wil McCarthy is a novelist, the science columnist for the SciFi channel, and the Chief Technology Officer for Galileo Shipyards, an aero-space research corporation. He has written articles for ... 'Wired'. He lives in Lakewood, Colorado."
A rare instance of a patent issued for ideas developed while writing a book.
Substance: The gadgets of sf are coming to a Wal-Mart near you, any day now. Describes the technology (current and projected) of "wellstones" and quantum dots, human-created pseudo-atoms on chips.
Style: Serviceable journalese. Accessible to the non-specialist.
Excerpts:
p. 2 "...in his 1962 collection 'Profiles of the Future', writer and visionary Sir Arthur C. Clarke formalized three "laws" of technological development:
First Law: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
Second Law: "The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."
[i.e., drive trucks over the bridge until it breaks?]
Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
[see Asprin's Corollary: "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology." in 'Mythtaken Identity' ]
p. 11 "This is MIT, dude -- the 'present' was invented here thirty years ago."
p. 77 "The three laws of thermodynamics, in their simplest form, are (1) you can't win, (2) you can't break even, and (3) you can't get out of the game."
p. 173 "Is the human race collectively ready for point-and-click power over matter itself? Certainly, any abuses that are possible are also very likely to be attempted. Still, as with most other technologies, it seems unlikely that the potential evils of programmable matter outweigh the benefits."
[Substitute for 'programmable matter' your choice of one or more of the following: nuclear power; DDT; combustion engine; fossil fuels; and even CO2. Seems a bit overly optimistic and even downright disingenuous for an sf writer of his generation. However, it attitude is typical of the Franklin First Person - Third Person Syndrome.] ( )