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
"The immediate problem with our meat brains is that they have no back-up. We can lose the most precious information we have from one bump on the head or stroke. You want a mind system with back-up that can access other databases."
- Bart Kosko
 |
| Robot Cells (Crystal-Shaped Modules) | ||
| Minute dodecahedral units that could combine into different shapes to become full robots. |
Robots today are build of distinct, single-purpose units - motors, power source, protective skin, hinges or other joints - and so forth. In the book, a radically new notion for building a robot is uncovered.
| "At ten power, the surface is undifferentiated. Increasing magnification now. Granularity becoming evident. There seems to be a regular pattern. Pattern resolving now into hexagonal planar surfaces. Maximum magnification." The robot paused for a fraction of a second. "The surface appears to consist of twelve-sided solids in close association..."
[Derec] touched the connector to the stump end of the Supervisor arm, and it clung there as though it belonged... Almost instantly, the disembodied Supervisor arm slowly began to flex. "Look at the joint," Derec demanded. "Tell me what’s happening." "The changes are taking place more quickly than my scan rate allows me to observe," the robot said. "However, I infer that the dodecahedrons are undergoing some type of directed rearrangement." "Flowing into a new shape. The material of the arm is transforming itself." "Those descriptors are imprecise but consistent with my observations. The technical term for such reorganization is morphallaxis." Derec felt for his chair and sat down shakily. The Supervisors had been built out of billions of tiny crystalshaped modules-a cellular structure. Each had to contain kilometers of circuit connections, megabytes of programming. It was the cells that were the robots. The robots were more like organisms. What a feat of engineering they represented - the essence of a robot in a package a few microns diameter. Properly programmed, they could take on any shape. A Supervisor was an infinity of specialized forms held within one generalized package. |
| Technovelgy from Isaac Asimov's Odyssey : Robot City: Book1,
by Michael P. Kube-McDowell. Published by Pocket i-Books in 1987 Additional resources -
|
The earliest version of this idea that I know about is the living metal cubes from the 1920 story The Metal Monster by Abraham Merritt.
Thanks to Dan Groves for contributing this item.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Isaac Asimov's Odyssey : Robot City: Book1
More Ideas
and Technology by Michael P. Kube-McDowell
Tech news articles related to Isaac Asimov's Odyssey : Robot City: Book1
Tech news articles related to works by Michael P. Kube-McDowell
| No Tips! Robotic Food Delivery In Phoenix |
| Micro-Robots Are Smallest, Fully Functional |
| DIY Robotic Hand Made After Loss Of Fingers |
| Robot Snakes No Longer Stopped By Stairs |
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
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
