Stealing Ideas from Nature
The concept of using ideas from nature to further technology has been given a number of names such as “Biomimetics”, “Biomimesis”, “Biognosis” and “Bionics”. In each instance it’s probably fair to adopt the attitude of Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty and sa
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STEALING IDEAS FROM NATURE
Julian F. V. Vincent Centre for Biomimetics, The University of Reading, U.K. 1
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Biomimetics?
The concept of using ideas from nature to further technology has been given a number of names such as "Biomimetics", "Biomimesis", "Biognosis" and "Bionics". In each instance it's probably fair to adopt the attitude of Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty and say that the meaning of all four words is whatever I want it to be - and in this instance I shall define the meaning of all four words as the same. Biomimetics is the technological outcome of the act of borrowing or stealing ideas from nature. It is difficult to trace the origins of this approach, since man has looked to nature for inspiration for more than 3000 years (when the Chinese hankered after an artificial silk). In modern times, the word "bionics" was coined by Jack Steele of the US Air Force in 1960 at a meeting at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. He defined it as the science of systems which have some function copied from nature, or which represent characteristics of natural systems or their analogues. In 1966 R-G Busnel, of the animal acoustics laboratory in Jouy-en-Josas in France, organised a meeting on the theme "Biological models of animal sonar systems" in which the Office of Naval Research of the USA was involved. They had already funded other work in the general area of biological engineering, such as Torkel Weis-Fogh 's work on resilin (a rubbery type of insect cuticle) and elastin in Cambridge. Busnel's meeting was one of the first at which these problems were discussed by biologists, engineers and mathematicians in order to discover general principles of technology. But, in reality, how many ideas of technology have been derived from nature? Mostly they are seen as parallel only once they have become established. Some have definitely not come from nature, so that the comparison between helicopters and sycamore seeds is spurious. The technical problems in getting a helicopter airborne were almost entirely to do with control systems in which biology could be of no help. The Eiffel Tower and Velcro have their inspirational origins firmly founded in nature. The stable wing planform designed by Ignaz and Igo Etrich in 1904, was derived from the large (15 em span) winged seed of Alsomitra macrocarpa, a Iiana which grows on islands in the Pacific. There is argument as to whether Joseph Paxton really did get his 1
Current address: Department of Mechanical Engineering. The University of Bath, U.K.
S. Pellegrino (ed.), Deployable Structures © Springer-Verlag Wien 2001
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J.F. V. Vincent
ideas for the Crystal Palace from the leaves of a giant water lily. At least one version of a ribbed low-drag surface was derived from studies on shark skin. But nature can still give us confidence in the correctness of a result since computer techniques allow model structures to be modified in response to changing loads, producing very biological shapes in the process. The interest lies not just in the abstraction of useful i
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