December 21, 2017 Thursday
Bedtime Story
The Idea of Automata is as Ancient as it Gets
Once Vaucanson visioned that the human body
as a mechanical machine with its own system of levers and pulleys, pumping
heart and circulatory and ventilator system, it inspired him to develop
mechanical machines of his own.
Not just simple mechanical machines but
those that ran along the lines of human biology and would have in them the
functions of circulation, respiration and digestion.
In fact, at a very young age, he not only
wished to invent machines but invent machines that would be self operating.
We call such machines automata, robots or
even androids.
You must understand that the Western world
would like to have him the first to construct automata though careful reading
of history speaks otherwise.
Almost all known civilizations that came
before had not only thought of automata but had well designed automata in many
of the emperors’ palaces.
Just have a look at this small excerpt from
third or fourth century BC text from ancient China.
It is a text from Liezi, belonging to the
fifth century BC Hundred Schools of Thought.
In it is a description of an encounter
between an Emperor and a mechanical engineer who is shown to be presenting the
emperor with a life-size, human android that would most likely be called a
robot in today’s vocabulary.
“The emperor stared at the figure in astonishment.
It walked with rapid strides, moving its
head up and down, so that anyone would have taken it for a live human being.
The artificer touched its chin, and it
began singing, perfectly in tune.
He touched its hand, and it began
posturing, keeping perfect time…
As the performance was drawing to an end,
the robot winked its eye and made advances to the ladies in attendance,
whereupon the king became incensed and would have had Yen Shih (the mechanical
engineer or the “artificer”) executed on the spot had not the later, in mortal
fear, instantly taken the robot to pieces to let him see what it really was.
And, indeed, it turned out to be only a
construction of leather, wood, glue and lacquer, variously colored white, black,
red and blue.
Examining it closely, the king found all
the internal organs complete – liver, gall, heart, lungs, spleen, kidneys,
stomach and intestines ; and over these again muscles, bones and limbs with
their joints, skin, teeth and hair; all of them artificial…
The king tried the effect of taking away
the heart, and found that the mouth could no longer speak; he took away the liver
and the eyes could no longer see; he took away the kidneys and the legs lost
their power of locomotion.
The king was delighted.”
The accuracy of this archaic text is of
course can never be truly verified, but it surely indicates that automata was
not a remote idea of even those ancient times.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
Advertisements
Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
No comments:
Post a Comment