Quote:
Originally Posted by Carolyn_Grace
As an English teacher, I'm offended that no science fiction authors were chosen as names for fields. Asimov pretty much predicted the field of robotics.
/snark
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As much a fan of SF (and Asimov in particular) that I am (I started with his non-fiction in middle school (OBTW he taught me to use a slide rule), wore mutton chops through most of the '80's following his lead, and have read the full robots-empire-foundation series about a dozen times), if you really want to honor a ground-breaker in the field of robotics, you can't do much better than Heron of Alexandria. Though he is best known today for his formula for the area of a triangle given the length of the three sides, he invented robotics more than a millennium before the term was coined. He built devices powered by falling weights and cords. In the first century, he programmed a ten-minute long autonomous play using strings and knots and pulleys. He also invented a steam engine, the vending machine, and (particularly noteworthy to this acoustician) the principle of the shortest path.