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"Human beings hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn; when they do, which isn't often, on their own, the hard way."
- Robert Heinlein
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| Robot Biomimicry | ||
| Endowing robots with an organic-appearing fluidity, rather than mechanical motion. |
As far as I know, Wells is the first to both describe machines that seem to move like organic beings, and also to describe some sort of means by which this "biomimicry" might be accomplished. Wells himself did not use this expression.
He called it "a curious parallelism to animal motions".
| ...And while upon this matter of detail, it is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature of the disks in an elastic sheath; these disks become polarised and drawn closely and powerfully together when traversed by a current of electricity. In this way the curious parallelism to animal motions, which was so striking and disturbing to the human beholder, was attained. Such quasi-muscles abounded in the crablike handling-machine which, on my first peeping out of the slit, I watched unpacking the cylinder. It seemed infinitely more alive than the actual Martians lying beyond it in the sunset light... |
| Technovelgy from The War of the Worlds,
by H.G. Wells. Published by Harper and Bros. in 1898 Additional resources -
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Tech news articles related to The War of the Worlds
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Robot Biomimicry-related
news articles:
- Rippling Fin Robot Drone Swims And Walks
| DIY Robotic Content Farming |
| Vero Robotic Dog With Vacuum Cleaner Feet |
| Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot |
| Origin F1 Humanoid Robot's Facial Skin |
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'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
'Midges have many capabilities. To the untrained eye, they look like sparrows.'
'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...'
'It sounds to me as though you had invented a kind of metal earthworm.'
