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"The science fiction method is dissection and reconstruction. You look at the world around you, and take it apart into its components. Then you take some of those components, throw them away, and plug in different ones, start it up and see what happens."
- Frederik Pohl

Illuminum  
  A metal that glows with its own light.  

The walls and ceiling bore an irregular spacing of illuminum tiles whose half-life was clearly almost up, and their feeble radiance had the sole effect of shoveling the gloom into the center of the room.
Technovelgy from Altered Carbon, by Richard Morgan.
Published by Del Rey in 2003
Additional resources -

This is another one of those science fiction words that I like, probably because it has a "classic sf" kind of feel to it, like selectacol or dimensino.

Compare to the wall-lights from Isaac Asimov's 1953 novel Foundation and Empire and to light panel from Let There Be Light (1940) by Lyle Monroe.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Altered Carbon
  More Ideas and Technology by Richard Morgan
  Tech news articles related to Altered Carbon
  Tech news articles related to works by Richard Morgan

Illuminum-related news articles:
  - Polymer Takes Cue From Glow Worms
  - Light-Emitting Wallpaper From Jonas Samson
  - Planilum Light-Emitting Material
  - Sensitile Terrazzo Tiles With Light-Channels
  - Glowing LumiLor-Coated Cycles From Sith CycleWerks
  - Helios Modular Touch Screen Wall Lights

Articles related to Misc
Is There A Subterranean Ocean?
The Robotic Shopping Cart Of The Future
Arctic Resource Jackpot An Old Wish
Marie Curie's Papers Still Radioactive

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