Hello, SFIA audio listeners, in this month's Nebula exclusive, Big Alien Theory,

we're asking the reason alien civilizations might be rare is because most aliens are huge.

To hear it and every episode early and ad-free, plus hours of bonus content, check out

go.nebula.tv slash Isaac Arthur and use my code, Isaac Arthur.

This video is sponsored by CuriosityStream.

Get access to my streaming video service, Nebula, when you sign up for CuriosityStream

using the link in the description.

In the future, we may have materials able to change their form at the snap of a finger

or wave of a hand, and it is possible even that finger and that hand might be made of such

materials.

So today we'll be looking at the concept of smart matter and programmable matter, things

able to assume mini shapes or perhaps

even complex machines and organic structures in moments.

We will be looking at varying levels of this technology and what roles and uses it might

have and even if it might be the fate of a future humanity.

Now it is common to think of smart matter as more or less being nanobots, tiny machines

that can do virtually any job, including self-replicating, or latching onto each other to form

shapes, and so today we'll also be asking what, if anything, differentiates smart matter

from nanobots.

Probably the way the concept of smart matter got out into the public eye was with the

1991 Blockbuster Terminator 2 Judgment Day, where Robert Patrick plays the T-1000, the

time traveling and shape-shifting evil robot made of liquid metal.

...