A ROBOT

A robot is basically a machine which can be programmed.  We all as children have owned or seen a toy robot, well now what started as a fantasy in a fictional story written by Asimov in 1942 has become a reality. Robots who in science fiction were destined to take over the world have certainly taken a substantial step towards doing this.  Numerous robots are built and cover almost every aspect of society from industry to healthcare and almost anything else you care to name.  This website is called Robotic and hopefully will enlighten your knowledge and your interest in these human creations.

Robots also need human supervison and there are now recognised requirements for such jobs. These people are called Roboticists.

We endeavour to deal with anything to do with the world of robots. No mean feat as the world of robotics is growing at an amazing pace. Just look at what computers have done for us in this century well more than probably Robotics will do the same in the next.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ROBOTS

The first mention anywhere of the word Robot was in his play in 1921 by Karel Capek (a czech playwright) The play was called R.U.R. {Rossums Universal Robots} and was about a world in which robots started by helping mankind and ended up causing misery because of lack of jobs etc.  A view which some people might agree with today.

Asimov created the four laws of robot behavior, cyber laws all robots had to obey and a fundamental part of positronic robotic engineering. The Isaac Asimov FAQ states, "Asimov claimed that the laws were originated by John W. Campbell in a conversation they had on December 23, 1940. Campbell in turn maintained that he picked them out of Asimov's stories and discussions, and that his role was merely to state them explicitly. The first story to explicitly state the three laws was "Runaround", which appeared in the March 1942 issue of "Astounding Science Fiction". Unlike the Three Laws, however, the Zeroth Law is not a fundamental part of positronic robotic engineering, is not part of all positronic robots, and, in fact, requires a very sophisticated robot to even accept it."