"QUANTUM SHOT" #667 Link - article by Simon Rose and Avi Abrams
Industrious Little Creatures, Full of Gears and Wonder
When we say that today’s rapidly changing technology is set to transform the way we live in unimaginable ways, we should remember that people thought much the same thing in earlier centuries - whether in the time of the clockwork revolution in the eighteenth century or as a result of the scientific advances of the Industrial Revolution in the Victorian era.
Here are a few examples of fascinating early robots and automatons, full of great engineering and wonder:
(left: L’Oiseleur (The Bird Trainer), the most expensive automaton doll - 6.25 million US dollars, info)
Leonardo da Vinci is renowned for his inventions that were often centuries ahead of their time, so it’s not surprising to learn that he was also active in developing automatons. Leonardo’s ‘robot’ was designed around 1495 and the notes were rediscovered in a sketchbook in the 1950’s. We have no idea if Leonardo actually tried to build the device, but a version was built based on his designs and did actually work, being capable of reproducing several humanoid movements.
"The industrious mechanical beetle scurried to and fro in the garden, hoping to hide her vulnerability under the hard shell of indifference."
From Germany, this small wooden puppet depicting a monk also dates from the mid sixteenth century and has a lever and a mechanism for the figure’s joints (below left). On the right is the Italian female lute player automaton, which dates from the same period:
As watch making developed in the Age of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, so did the art of creating mechanical people and animals. Jacques Vaucason created numerous working figures, including a flute player, which actually played the instrument, in 1738, plus this duck from 1739. The gilded copper bird could sit, stand, splash around in water, quack and even give the impression of eating food and digesting it:
Later in the eighteenth century, Pierre Jaquet-Doz created three automata, The Writer, The Draughtsman and The Musician, which are still considered scientific marvels today. The Draughtsman is capable of producing four distinct pictures, while the Writer dips his pen in the ink and can write as many as forty letters. The Musician’s fingers actually play the organ and the figure ends her performance with a bow.
Henri Maillardet’s Automaton, which illustrates and writes several verses in both French and English (watch a video), was built in 1805. Over a century later, in 1928, it was acquired by Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute, although at the time, the object’s history was uncertain. However, once the automaton had been repaired and operated again for the first time in many decades, it wrote the words ‘written by the automaton of Maillardet’, thus solving the mystery.
The Joueuse de Tympanon was built in 1772 (watch video) and presented to Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, then later restored by Robert Houdin in 1864. Houdin was renowned as an inventor, clockmaker and even as a magician, creating many mechanical marvels of his own. Some figures often simply mimicked the actions in time with a musical box inside the machine, but this automaton really plays the instrument.
The Turk was invented in 1770 by Wolfgang von Kempelen and was an apparent chess master, defeating such illustrious opponents as Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon Bonaparte. The mechanical hand moved the game pieces and the device’s cabinet doors could be opened to show a variety of complicated gears and other machinery. However, the mechanical marvel was later revealed to be an elaborate hoax, with a person hidden inside the box directing the chess moves. There was even a sliding seat that allowed the operator to stay hidden when the doors were opened for people to examine the fake machinery.
Other hoaxes existed - for example, this automaton called Nancy from the late 1800’s was operated from beneath the stage by a hand crank (watch video).
This rather curious example dates from the 1790’s and once belonged to Tipu Sultan, ruler of Mysore and a fierce opponent of the expansion of British rule in India. The wooden automaton, containing a miniature organ, shows a tiger, which apparently actually growls, attacking a European soldier:
"The stag has a hollow body and a removable head and can be used as a drinking cup. When used in drinking games, a mechanism in the base was wound up and the automaton was allowed to run freely on concealed wheels..."
Euphonia, a machine that could mimic a human voice, was developed by Joseph Faber in the middle years of the nineteenth century. Using German accented English, it could read the alphabet, sing, whisper, laugh and even utter the words “How do you do, ladies and gentlemen”. Apparently anyone who inspected the Euphonia’s mechanical workings was convinced that no trickery was involved, such as Faber employing a ventriloquist:
This remarkable steam-powered, life-sized man, using a gas boiler, was built in 1893 by Canadian George Moore and had a walking speed of around nine mph:
"It walked smoothly, and almost noiselessly... It was controlled by means of an electric battery. The walk was rapid, and at the end of the journey around the hall the step was as resilient as at the beginning. The inventor of the machine-man said it could keep up that pace for an almost unlimited time. But the figure, on this question, spoke for itself. "I am going to walk from New York to San Fransisco," it said, in a deep clear voice... Within the bosom of the automation is concealed a talking machine. Perew's man may be taught to say anything."
(top & left images: Frank Reade's Steam Man; right image: 1868 "Steam Man" by Dederick, more info)
From the pages of Science and Invention, 1924, comes this Radio Police Automaton:
I would like to see your source for John Dees "flying " beetle. it is an oft repeated claim but the only proper description I could find of this is in a history of his life
For this play he devised a clever mechanical and very spectacular effect. Trygaeus, the Attic vine-dresser, carrying a large basket of food for himself, and mounted on his gigantic beetle or scarab (which ate only dung), was seen ascending from his dwelling on the stage to enter the palace of Zeus in the clouds above. One has only to think of the scenic effects presented by Faust and Mephistopheles at Mr. Tree’s theatre, for instance, to realise how crude and ineffective these attempts must have been; but thirty or forty years before Shakespeare’s plays were written, so unusual an exhibition was enough to excite wild rumours of supernatural powers.
From the diagram you print it does not look like something that could actually fly.
Also I think the present day robot makers must be missing something. They seem to be having huge problems getting autonomous robots to walk. Maybe they should try copying George Moores steam man! Although a closer examination of the literature shows "When he developed a head of steam he could walk, but only in circles, since he was attached to a horezontal radius arm" But hey why let the facts get in the way of a good story! Oh and why no mention of Faberges stuperb automata?
Droz, not Doz. I seem to recall the history of the chess player is actually quite a bit more complicated, and may not have been intended as a hoax originally, but I lack the time needed to check. Nice work!
You should also have a look at the automatons used in the Takayama festival in Gifu prefecture on Japan. I think they are around 400 years old and are quite impressive. There is one interesting one outside a restaurant that has a man "magic trick" with a box. Every time he lifts the box it reveals another item on the menu. It is powered by a water wheel which sits in one of the open drains that line the streets。I found a video of it here... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxEUY0Y97Mw
I feel like the concept of "make it as thick as the earth to deal with gravity" suggests a lack of attention to high school physics.
Mass creates gravity, sure, but when we're not dealing with a nice, convenient, ball, you're going to have issues with exactly what direction gravity is pulling you. Hollow or not, you will be pulled towards the centre of mass. In the Dyson Sphere, that's the centre of the sun. With the disc it's a bit more of a complex math problem.
In response to Neil, the concept of the disc is actually much more complicated than high school physics allows, as does this article. Gravity on a flat plane is significantly different from that of a sphere, as it will always be perpendicular to the surface. See the wikipedia article on Alderson Discs for an easy-to-follow refernce. However, as you approach the sun, there would be a shearing effect as the sun's gravity competed with the disc's.
There's one more megascale structure from a more recent SF novel. It's not as large as the others but honstly? it's much more fun, and that counts, doesn't it? I'm talking about Karl Schroeder Virga structure - basically a hollowed-out baloon the size of a planet, filled with air. there's no gravity inside so you can fly in the air. You live on rocks that float inside the environment, or in floating cities built like small rotating halos / space stations. For light, you need a large artificial sun in the middle or have smaller artificial suns placed throughout the structure. There's probably less room for people inside one of these then there's on a regular planet the same size but You can make lots of similar structures from the material of one planet - provided you have air to fill all of them. Also, you don't need an impossibly high tensile strength like you need to build a ringworld. Lastly, if you live in such a structure you can fly by flapping your arm - that's just awesome.
The problem with the Gibraltar dam is that the water lost from the Med ends up in the oceans, raising sea levels and reducing land area around the world. The net increase in land area would be negligible, and some inhabited areas would be flooded. Someone didn't think it all through!
'Ringworld' is an awesome trilogy. It should be noted that its much 'wider than the planet' About a million miles across I believe between the 1000 mile high edges. Havent seen an illustration yet that accurately portrays this.
Megastructures like Dyson spheres and Alderson discs are recurring themes in science fiction; back in the seventies a similar article (with, alas, sketches rather than the fine illustrations in this article) was published in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact. i believe it, too, was titled "Bigger Than Worlds."
Very few images of Ringworld are realistic; there used to be some images created with POV-Ray that showed that at 93 some million miles from the sun, the even a million mile wide ringworld is almost invisible from the far side (which would be 186 million miles away).
Don't you just love the Daily Mail (or Bile Duct as it's called in our house). That's not Assange's secret hideout, it's a data centre used by hundreds of organisations. They really will print just about any old claptrap these days.
The Akira bike isn't a concept, it's a real-life version of a bike from the 1988 Anime movie of that name. There have been several versions of Kaneda's bike done, and the one shown is one of the best.
I like the dirty looking bike, the one that "came from a zombie apocalypse" type, it looks mean and vintage. And it really does have the theme of a zombie apocalypse type like of bike.
I love motorcycles with unusual engines: http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/features/v12_custom_kawasaki_2300cc/index.html http://thekneeslider.com/archives/2009/08/25/allen-millyard-builds-a-viper-v10-motorcycle/ http://thekneeslider.com/archives/2009/10/30/honda-cbx-v12-by-andreas-georgeades/
Pentru cei interesati de a vedea motoare de acest gen in 3D si pe coloana sonora semnata de daft Punk ... are sansa in Romania de pe 17 decembrie cand e premiera.
The "Kustom Combat" bike is a model, not a motorcycle. Poor research on some of these bikes, the dirty "apocalypse" bikes are called 'rat bikes'. Interesting pictures, but disappointing writing concerning them.
This is great time to read all the infornation ..i always like to read some good and informative blogs and this blog is also so good and helpful.thanks for taking time to discus this topic.
My friend was visiting in Albania, and saw the Lockheed T-33 some years ago. The Albanians said it was a spy plane, for the imminent American invasion of Albania......
Moreton-in-Marsh in Gloucestershire, UK, houses the National Fire Training College, which used to be an RAF base. Near the fence on the North side there's the skeleton of a Hawker Hunter. Just looks like it was thrown into the woods. Quite eerie...
Great stuff - but the dH Vampire wasn't the first British jet fighter - that was the Gloster Meteor.
Dad was fighting in Burma when the Meteor started flying and remembered rumours of "A plane without a propellor, which whistled like a kettle". Which rumours he dismissed, as did most who heard them.
The MOTEL is not somewhere in Russia, but in Lithuania. I used to work with a company in Kaunas and travelled past it every couple of months. Trying to remember where it was ... it could also be in Latvia ;-) Anyway, touring from Estonia to Lithuania on E67 it is on your right at some point of this 600 km stretch.
"The chips are covered in a gummy capsule, and are edible after use."
"The chips are sold in packages just like candies."
Like gum with baseball cards. Could be done today... I smell lawsuit :) Nice idea though. RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive) would love them and it would be the first Epeat (Environmentally Preferable) gold if you could eat the entire thing.
Given how often I lose pens, I'd be terrified of owning one of those pen computers.
Then again, I think once again design aesthetics is outstripping practicality. How many of these models give the tactile feedback of a regular keyboard?
So that is what Chewbacca looked like when he was a kid... Who would have thought. Oh and thank you for the last several years of laughs. Please keep them coming. The stories and pictures of odd places rock. I have actually travelled to find some of these and will search for more as time goes by..... Thank you DRB
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5 Comments:
The mecanical bettle remember me the film "Cronos" by Guillermo del Toro. His firts movie.
I would like to see your source for John Dees "flying " beetle. it is an oft repeated claim but the only proper description I could find of this is in a history of his life
For this play he devised a clever mechanical and very spectacular effect.
Trygaeus, the Attic vine-dresser, carrying a large basket of food for himself, and
mounted on his gigantic beetle or scarab (which ate only dung), was seen ascending
from his dwelling on the stage to enter the palace of Zeus in the clouds above. One
has only to think of the scenic effects presented by Faust and Mephistopheles at Mr.
Tree’s theatre, for instance, to realise how crude and ineffective these attempts must
have been; but thirty or forty years before Shakespeare’s plays were written, so
unusual an exhibition was enough to excite wild rumours of supernatural powers.
From the diagram you print it does not look like something that could actually fly.
Also I think the present day robot makers must be missing something. They seem to be having huge problems getting autonomous robots to walk. Maybe they should try copying George Moores steam man! Although a closer examination of the literature shows
"When he developed a head of steam he could walk, but only in circles, since he was attached to a horezontal radius arm"
But hey why let the facts get in the way of a good story! Oh and why no mention of Faberges stuperb automata?
Please write "amazing automata" (plur.), "amazing automaton" is singular, so doesn't exist "automatons". Excuse my teacherlike kind !
Droz, not Doz. I seem to recall the history of the chess player is actually quite a bit more complicated, and may not have been intended as a hoax originally, but I lack the time needed to check. Nice work!
You should also have a look at the automatons used in the Takayama festival in Gifu prefecture on Japan. I think they are around 400 years old and are quite impressive. There is one interesting one outside a restaurant that has a man "magic trick" with a box. Every time he lifts the box it reveals another item on the menu. It is powered by a water wheel which sits in one of the open drains that line the streets。I found a video of it here... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxEUY0Y97Mw
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