Some time ago I watched an episode of Beyond 2000 on television’s Discovery Channel, and I learned about a new type of metal. This “shape memory alloy,” as it was called, could be programmed to “remember” a certain shape. If that original shape was distorted in some way (by twisting and bending it with your hands, for example), it could easily be restored by simply passing it through hot water. Imagine car bodies made of a metal like that—if you had a fender bender you would simply take your automobile