Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"Science fiction and science have always danced around each other. Science fiction is the subconscious of science."
- Greg Bear
 |
| Robotic Microhands | ||
| Mechanical replica of hands, that mimic the movements of actual human hands. |
Very clever story that seems to anticipate lots of other references by Raymond Z. Gallun and Robert Heinlein, among others.
| A thought occurred to me.
Is it possible to convey the movement of my hands, the movement of each of my ten fingers in full accuracy, but a hundred times smaller? ...I will make small hands, an exact copy of mine — even though they will be at least twenty, thirty times smaller, but they will have flexible fingers, like mine, they will clench into a fist, unbend, become the same positions as my living hands. And I made them. Not only that, with the fine work of the watchmaker, I equipped them with a mechanism that moved my fingers, these little puppet fingers, exactly on my orders. I led all this management to gloves, to special gloves. I put these gloves on my hands, and my slightest movement was transmitted to the puppet handles with a whole network of wires: I will squeeze the right fist - the right handle is squeezed into a small cam. I will take back the whole left hand - creeps back and a small left hand. They were only twenty times smaller than my living hands, and they repeated all my movements in a small form.
|
| Technovelgy from Microhands (Микроруки),
by Boris Zhitkov. Published by Not known in 1931 Additional resources -
|
Zhitkov also takes the next step! Micro hands... for his microhands:
...But the thought suddenly struck me: I can make micro hands to my little hands. I can make the same gloves for them as I did for my living hands, use the same system to connect them to the handles ten times smaller than my micro arms, and then ... I will have real micro arms, they will chop my movements two hundred times. With these hands I will burst into such a smallness of life that they have only seen, but where no one else has disposed of their own hands. And I got to work.
What was it like to see him at work?
Compare these ideas to the microrobot from The Scarab (1936) by Raymond Z. Gallun, the ultra-microrobot from Menace in Miniature (1937) also by Gallun, waldo from Waldo (1942) by Robert Heinlein, the golden shuttles from The Mechanical Mice (1941) by Maurice Hugi, the autofac nanorobots from Autofac (1955) by Philip K. Dick, the nanomachine swarm from The Invincible (1954) by Stanislaw Lem, the Christmas Bush robot from Rocheworld by Robert Forward and the robot cells from Robot City (1987) by Michael Kube-McDowell.
(From Microhands by Boris Zhitkov)
...My friend found me when I was working empty-handed in the air with microscopes in my eyes, and wanted to run after the doctor.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Microhands (Микроруки)
More Ideas
and Technology by Boris Zhitkov
Tech news articles related to Microhands (Микроруки)
Tech news articles related to works by Boris Zhitkov
Robotic Microhands-related
news articles:
- DIY Robotic Hand Made After Loss Of Fingers
| The Zapata Air Scooter Would Be Great In A Science Fiction Story |
| Could Crystal Batteries Generate Power For Centuries? |
| Replace The Smartphone With A Connected Edge Node For AI Inference |
| Sunday Robotics 'Memo' Bot Has Unique Training Glove |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'Power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice'
'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.'
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
