Weirdware: Touchable Unconventional Computers (WSPC Book Series in Unconventional Computing)

"Packed with stories of real experiments and mind-being ideas, this timely book will delight curious readers and anyone dreaming of a future beyond silicon." Dr Dan Nicolau Jr. Reader, King's College London, UK "A fully comprehensive survey of physical, chemical, and biological computing prototypes—a field in which almost no comparable popular-science books exist." Dr Yukio-Pegio Gunji Professor, Waseda University, Japan Professor Emeritus, Kobe University, Japan "The book MUST be published. It provides a fresh and comprehensive view of computation in general and a vision of a new world: living computers." Prof. Dr Hab. Konrad Szaciłowski Professor, AGH University of Kraków, Poland Weirdware reveals a universe where computation emerges from life, chemistry, and matter itself—from maze-solving slime moulds and electrically active mushrooms to light-sensing kombucha mats, crystals that compute geometry, droplets that collide like logic gates, and finally, nanoparticles that "learn" from experience. Drawing on decades of original laboratory research, this book explores eight astonishing forms of natural and chemical computing, showing how soft, living, and self-organizing materials process information without chips, codes, or silicon. Weirdware invites you into a future where intelligence is not manufactured, but cultivated—computers grown like mushrooms, brewed like tea, or mixed like paint. Read more