By Agnès Guillot & Jean-Arcady Meyer; translated by Susan EmanuelThe MIT Press232 pp. $29.95
Where do physicists turn for inspiration? To biology, naturally. Back in the day, we used to dream of being like the Six Million Dollar Man, Steve Austin, our bodies made of space-age metal and plastic, squishy biology replaced by new technology. But the opposite process—nature inspiring technological breakthroughs—goes back centuries. Nature’s technology-transfer office could have done a brisk trade: wristwatches with cricket-inspired alarms, self-sharpening knife blades based on rat’s teeth, and of course, Velcro.
The nature-inspired gadgets covered in the lavishly illustrated How to Catch a Robot Rat include bipeds, quadrupeds, hexapods, fish, snakes, birds and insect drones, Honda’s humanoid robot, ASIMO, and even a “SmartFish” concept plane that looks decidedly aquatic. The future is likely to be populated with man-made devices, machines, and transport that, perhaps frighteningly, can learn and even evolve.
by David GoodsteinPrinceton ...
