History of Robotic Surgery
Robot is derived from a Czech term “robata” that translates into compulsory labor. One of the first known automated machines, a statue of king Memnon that was able to produced sounds, dates back to 1300 BC, and human trials to build a “robot” extend into
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History of Robotic Surgery Haidar Abdul-Muhsin and Vipul Patel
Introduction Human dreams and fantasies to develop a “robot” roots back deep in history, as old as ancient civilizations. History of robotic development is an interesting example of how a myth can transform to reality, how fiction becomes the seeds of historical inventions and achievements that serves humanity for decades. As we go through the history of robotic development, we realize how difficult it is to attribute this development to a certain person or a certain era. This is not due to lack of historical resources but because robot creation was the result of interaction of multiple civilizations, cultures, and sciences. “Robota” is a Czech term that described compulsory work. In its original Czech, robota means forced labor of the kind that serfs had to perform on their masters’ lands and is derived from the term rab, meaning “slave.” Despite the existing debate in Czech literature regarding the first person who invented this term, the most reliable references point that this term appeared first when Karel Capek used it in his play “Rossum’s Universal Robot” (RUR) in 1921. It was used to describe the artificial people in his play. The idea
H. Abdul-Muhsin, M.D. • V. Patel, M.D. (*) Florida Hospital–Celebration Health, Global Robotics Institute, 410 Celebration Place, Suite 200, Celebration, FL 34747, USA e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
came from his brother Joseph Capek who advised him to use this term to describe these characters. Ironically, 5 years earlier, when he wrote “Opilec,” Joseph described the artificial people as “automats” and not robots. Karel Capek in RUR wanted to warn against the rapid growth of the modern world and thus described the evolution of the robots with increasing capabilities that eventually revolted against their human makers [1]. He envisioned that these robots would revolt 40 years after the time the play was created, which is nearly in the 1960s. This coincided with the first appearance of the industrial robot later on. However, The Robots described in Capek’s play were not robots, as we know them now, a mechanical device that sometimes resembles a human. They were not machines, but rather live creatures that may be mistaken for humans. RUR quickly became famous and was influential early in the history of its publication. Two years after its first spread, it had been translated into 30 languages. This fact played a major role in the widespread popularity of this term. Many years later Isaac Asimov, a science fiction writer, used the term “Robotics” to describe the field of study of robotics in 1942. This usage further popularized the use of this term and resulted in the widespread of robots in subsequent artistic works with multiple roles that varied from friendly roles to hostile or comedian ones [2]. Asimov outlined the three rules of robotics in his books Runaround and I, Robot that were published between 1938 and 1942.
K.C. Kim (ed.), Robotics in General Surgery, DOI 10.1007/978-1-46
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