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"I went [to the top of] Vehicle Assembly Building and looked down, and tears burst from my eyes. The size of this cathedral where the Rockets take off to go to the moon is so amazing."
- Ray Bradbury
 |
| Robot Taste Buds | ||
| A sensor for robots that would allow it to taste foods like a human being. |
| "Half your time in cooking is wasted reaching around for what you need next. We can build in a lot of that stuff. For instance, one [mechanical] tentacle can be a registering thermometer. tapering to a fine point - stick it in a roast. One can end in a broad spoon for stirring - heat resistant, of course. One might terminate in a sort of hand, of which each of the digits was a different-sized measuring spoon. And best of all - why the nuisance of bringing food to the mouth to taste? Install taste buds in the end of one tentacle. |
| From Robinc,
by Anthony Boucher. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1943 Additional resources -
|
Compare the ability to taste with the ability to smell. See the mechanical hound from Ray Bradbury's 1953 masterpiece Fahrenheit 451 and the sniffer robot from Michael Crichton's 1985 movie Runaway.
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'A worker replaced by a nubot... had to be compensated.'
'... forcing the energy transfer which allowed him to regrow his lost fingers.'
'The car surged and lifted, clearing its top by a negligible margin.'
Science fiction authors are serious about sleep, too.
'I had explained," said Nessus, "that our civilisation was dying in its own waste heat.'
'Just what did I want Flexible Frank to do? - any work a human being does around a house.'
SF writers have thought about this since the 19th century.
