Edison's Eve: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life

During the eighteenth century, the inventor Jacques de Vaucanson created a mechanical duck that seemingly could digest and excrete its food. A few decades later, Europeans fell in love with "the Turk," a celebrated chess-playing machine built in 1769. Thomas Edison was obsessed for years with making a talking mechanical doll, one of his few failures as an inventor. In our own time, scientists at MIT are trying to build a robot with emotions of its own.

What lies behind our age-old pursuit to create mechanical life? What does this pursuit tell us about human nature? In Edison's Eve Gaby Wood traces the history of robotics, from its most brilliant inventions to its most ingenious hoaxes. Joining lively anecdote with literary, cultural, and philosophical insights, Wood offers a captivating and learned work of science and history.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Anchor Books
Published: 07/08/2003
ISBN: 9781400031580
Pages: 352
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.02h x 5.15w x 0.73d

Review Citations: New York Times 07/13/2003 pg. 28
Kliatt 01/01/2004 pg. 37
Library Journal 04/01/2015 pg. 45