Materialization

Look up materialization in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Materialization may refer to:

• Materialization (parapsychology), a concept, in parapsychology, is the creation or appearance of matter from unknown sources
• In science fiction, materialization is an action associated with several plot devices involving energy to matter conversion such as:
  • teleportation (in which two theorized stages are de-materialization and re-materialization), or
  • Replicator (Star Trek), said to be able to materialize food etc.,
  • the holodeck from the same series, which can materialize a fantasy partner.
• In computing, it is sometimes used as a synonym for instantiation, which itself has several concrete meanings.
  • In relational databases, it can refer to creating materialized views
  • Or more generally, any form of storing the results of a precomputation
  • A specific design pattern in object-oriented programming.
• The process of becoming more materialist
• The process of creating an embodiment of an idea, for example creating a prototype