1. A Strange Machine   In December 2005, an android head went missing from an America West Airlines flight between Dallas and Las Vegas. The roboticist who built it, David Hanson, had been transporting it to northern California, to the headquarters of Google, where it was scheduled to be the centerpiece of a special exhibition for the company’s top engineers and scientists. Hanson was a robot designer in his mid-thirties—nobody was quite sure of his age—with tousled jet-black hair and sunken eyes. He had worked late the night before on his presentation for Google and was tired and distracted when he boarded the five A.M. flight at Dallas–Fort Worth International Airport. An hour later, in the predawn darkness, the plane touched down on the tarmac of McCarran International Airport, in Las Vegas, where he was supposed to change to a second, connecting flight to San Francisco. But he had fallen asleep on the Dallas–Las Vegas leg so, after the other passengers had disembarked, a steward touched his shoulder to wake him and asked him to leave the plane. Dazed, Hanson grabbed the laptop at his feet and left, forgetting that he had stowed an important item in the overhead compartment: a sports bag. Inside was an android head. The head was a lifelike replica of Philip K. Dick, the cult science-fiction author and counterculture guru who had died in 1982. Made of plastic, wire, and a synthetic skinlike material called Frubber, it had a camera for eyes

“You''ve got to love a book that includes physics-lecturing fish, android Einsteins, and researchers intent on building robot replicas of their wives and girlfriends. Not to mention Philip K. Dick himself. This is an instant classic of weird science.”--Alex Boese, bestselling author of Elephants on Acid and Electric Sheep "This story is touching, absorbing and, ultimately, an exploration of what it means to be human."--The Spectator “The best kind of popular science... Leaves you hungry to know more, and wondering at the possibilities that may lie ahead.” --Australian Bookseller & Publisher “Literally incredible.”--The Age "[Dufty] ably describes the fertile, feverish atmosphere of intellectual endeavor, the kind of place where a crazy idea--like building a Philip K. Dick android--could take hold."--LA Times "[Dufty''s] reconstruction through interviews with the participants is an appealing depiction of brilliant minds dreaming big on shoestring budgets."--The New York Times Book Review "A highly technical story that Dufty manages to make intriguing and accessible to less tech-savvy readers...A fascinating story."--Kirkus "Dufty engagingly chronicles the efforts of a team of roboticists to build an android modeled on science fiction writer Philip K. Dick...A fun read."--Publishers Weekly "A fascinating and mind-bending book, written for the general reader, although experts in the field of robotics will find it particularly stimulating,