#2 The Lost Symbol Dan Brown 2009

In this book, one of the secondary characters is named Katherine Solomon. She happens to be researching Noetic Science, which is the study of human thoughts being able to control the physical world. Although Katherine Solomon and the extent of her research in Dan Brown's book is fiction, the scientific study is actually real. Katherine explains Noetic Science as such: A grain of sand has an immeasurably tiny mass. But if trillions of these grains of sand came together to form something (such as the moon) its gravity would have the ability to affect physical objects (such as the tide). Noetic Science states that thoughts similarly have an undetectable mass. In theory, if enough people began to think the same thing the gravity of the thought could have an actual effect on the physical world.

I love the idea that our thoughts could have an actual weight upon the universe. It calls to mind the phrase "mind over matter". Although I do not know what kind of effect joint-thoughts would have, nor if the effect would be worth the effort of getting thousands of people to think the same thought, I just like the idea that our thoughts have matter. It is not just some willy-nilly nothingness going in and out of your head. It is an actual thing even though you can not see it. Like gravity. Or the Force. It just gives it a little more self worth to acknowledge that it is there, and that it is not simply some abstract concept.