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
"If I had to get a new Ph.D. now, I'd get it in polymer engineering - the manipulation of matter."
- Bart Kosko
 |
| 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.
See also the mechanical hand from Buck Rogers, 2430 AD (1929) by Philip Nowlan (w/D. Calkins),
iron fingers from The Death's Head Meteor (1931) by Neil R. Jones,
robot hands from The Iron World (1937) by Otis Adelbert Kline,
waldoes from Waldo (1942) by Robert Heinlein,
robot surgeon-hand from War Veteran (1955) by Philip K. Dick,
robotic hand from The Door Into Summer (1956) by Robert Heinlein,
interchangeable hands from The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) by Philip K. Dick,
surgical hand from Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964) by Philip K. Dick and
office hand from The Human Blend (2010) by Alan Dean Foster.
(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
| MAI-Voice-2 Microsoft Text-To-Speech |
| Prufrock-MB2 Ready In Nashville |
| US Army IBEX Exoskeleton Walks Troops Out Of Danger |
| Terraformer Industries Make Methane |
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
'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
'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...'
