![]() Similar Chinese accounts of flying automata are written of the 5th century BC Mohist philosopher Mozi and his contemporary Lu Ban, who made artificial wooden birds ( ma yuan) that could successfully fly, according to the Han Fei Zi and other texts. ![]() Other notable examples include Archytas's dove, mentioned by Aulus Gellius. Examining it closely, the king found all the internal organs complete-liver, gall, heart, lungs, spleen, kidneys, stomach and intestines and over these again, muscles, bones and limbs with their joints, skin, teeth and hair, all of them artificial.The king tried the effect of taking away the heart, and found that the mouth could no longer speak he took away the liver and the eyes could no longer see he took away the kidneys and the legs lost their power of locomotion. And, indeed, it turned out to be only a construction of leather, wood, glue and lacquer, variously coloured white, black, red and blue. He touched its hand, and it began posturing, keeping perfect time.As the performance was drawing to an end, the robot winked its eye and made advances to the ladies in attendance, whereupon the king became incensed and would have had Yen Shih executed on the spot had not the latter, in mortal fear, instantly taken the robot to pieces to let him see what it really was. The artificer touched its chin, and it began singing, perfectly in tune. It walked with rapid strides, moving its head up and down, so that anyone would have taken it for a live human being. The king stared at the figure in astonishment. The latter proudly presented the king with a life-size, human-shaped figure of his mechanical handiwork ( Wade-Giles spelling): Within it, there is a description of a much earlier encounter between King Mu of Zhou (1023-957 BC) and a mechanical engineer known as Yan Shi, an 'artificer'. In ancient China, a curious account of automation is found in the Lie Zi text, written in the 3rd century BC. On each side, the animals helped the King up until he was comfortably seated upon his throne. As soon as he stepped upon the first step, a golden ox and a golden lion each stretched out one foot to support him and help him rise to the next step. It's also said that when King Solomon stepped upon the throne, a mechanism was set in motion. For example, in Jewish legend, Solomon used his wisdom to design a throne with mechanical animals which hailed him as king when he ascended it upon sitting down an eagle would place a crown upon his head, and a dove would bring him a Torah scroll. Īs in Greek mythology, there are ambitious automation claims in the legends of other cultures. Clockwork finally recovered the equivalent of pre-Roman technological levels in the 14th century. Īt some point, this level of sophistication in clockwork technology was lost or forgotten in Europe, and only returned when brought from the Islamic world after the Crusades, along with other knowledge leading to the Renaissance. There are many other accounts of clockwork devices in Ancient Greece, even in its mythology, and the mechanism itself is sophisticated enough to indicate a significant history of lesser devices leading up to its creation. The earliest known example of a clockwork mechanism is the Antikythera mechanism, a first-century BC geared analogue computer, somewhat astrolabe-like, for calculating astronomical positions and eclipses, recovered from a Greek shipwreck. The adjectives wind-up and spring-powered refer to mainspring-powered clockwork devices, which include clocks and watches, kitchen timers, music boxes, and wind-up toys. Then the force of the mainspring turns the clockwork gears, until the stored energy is used up. Energy is stored in the mainspring manually by winding it up, turning a key attached to a ratchet which twists the mainspring tighter. Ī clockwork mechanism is often powered by a clockwork motor consisting of a mainspring, a spiral torsion spring of metal ribbon. Clockwork refers to the inner workings of either mechanical devices called clocks and watches (where it is also called the movement) or other mechanisms that work similarly, using a series of gears driven by a spring or weight.
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