Think robots are just a modern thing? Think again! Dive into this wild ride through history and meet mechanical monks, programmable dolls, and a robot that even beat Napoleon at chess. From clockwork marvels to quirky automatons, you'll never look at robots the same way again! Hit subscribe for more awesome stories and drop a comment telling us your favorite automaton! #robots #history #technology #inventions #funfacts
👉 This channel was created in collaboration with @kramola_online
0:00 - Introduction to Historical Robots
0:44 - Early Automatons and Ancient Inventions
2:31 - Mechanical Wonders of the 18th Century
5:02 - Famous Clocks and the Art of Automation
7:24 - Miniaturization and Advancements in Automatons
11:23 - Writing Automatons and the Mechanical Turk
18:28 - Legacy and Impact of Automatons
19:22 - Automatons in Modern Culture and Conclusion
👉 This channel was created in collaboration with @kramola_online
0:00 - Introduction to Historical Robots
0:44 - Early Automatons and Ancient Inventions
2:31 - Mechanical Wonders of the 18th Century
5:02 - Famous Clocks and the Art of Automation
7:24 - Miniaturization and Advancements in Automatons
11:23 - Writing Automatons and the Mechanical Turk
18:28 - Legacy and Impact of Automatons
19:22 - Automatons in Modern Culture and Conclusion
Category
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TechTranscript
00:00It's tough to impress people with a robot. They're already among us, working in factories, saving people in emergencies, diffusing
00:07bombs, driving cars, helping around the house, and much more.
00:12But what did it look like a few hundred years ago?
00:16Yes, back then there were also some kinds of robots, mechanical devices resembling a human or an animal.
00:23They played musical instruments, wrote with a quill, danced, roared, and performed other actions that could shock an ordinary person.
00:33Today we're talking about mechanical monks, programmable writing boys, a robot that beat Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin at chess,
00:42and other wonders from bygone eras.
00:44In the 18th century, humanity probably began to feel like the master of nature for the first time.
00:50One after another, the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology yielded to inquisitive minds, and the forces of water and
00:57air were conquered.
00:59Everyone thought that just a little more progress, and man would be able, like God, to change the properties of
01:05matter and turn the inanimate into the living.
01:08These ideas gave rise to a fashion for automatons, mechanical imitations of humans and animals, capable of mimicking various actions,
01:17playing musical instruments, dancing, writing, and drawing.
01:20Of course, the range of movements was strictly limited by their design, and it was almost impossible to reprogram the
01:27automatons.
01:28In any case, it was easier to build a new one.
01:31Various stories about humanoid robots existed even in ancient Greece, for example, moving statues.
01:38But a much simpler mechanism described by Phylon of Byzantium, who died in 220, before Christ looks much more realistic.
01:47In the book Pneumatics, he described a device in the form of a woman who held a jug of wine
01:52in one hand,
01:53and when commanded, by placing a glass in her other hand, she would pour the wine.
01:59They are not to blame for it, they are not to blame for that, they are to blame for being
02:05to blame, to blame for, to blame for that, to blame for that, to blame for being to blame,
02:22for the fact that they cannot be to blame can be to blame
02:26for the fact that they cannot be to blame for moving their arms and neck.
02:31King of Spain
02:32Felipe II, in 1560, ordered engineer Juanelo Turiano to create a mechanical monk.
02:40The monk could cross himself, lift a crucifix, move his lips,
02:45as if he was praying for the king.
02:47The figure moved on wheels, but for realism,
02:49it also had legs that could be seen under the robe.
02:53In 1737, French inventor Jacques de Vaucanson built a flutist
02:59whose repertoire included 12 musical compositions.
03:02The holes on the flute were covered in the correct sequence by mechanical fingers,
03:08since wooden fingers could not fit tightly against the flute.
03:12The craftsmen used real human skin.
03:15Later, Vaucanson designed and assembled a duck from 400 parts,
03:18which flapped its wings, ate, digested grain, stirred it, and then defecated.
03:25The most important component for building automatons was the eccentric.
03:28A disc, or a sector of a disc, mounted on a rotating shaft
03:33so that its axis does not coincide with the axis of rotation of the shaft.
03:37This way, rotational motion becomes linear motion.
03:41Of course, you can't talk about delicate work without mentioning the Japanese.
03:46This doll is set in motion by strings connected to a mechanism similar to a clockwork.
03:52The eccentrics tighten and release the strings,
03:55making the doll perform various actions.
03:58This doll doesn't just move its arms.
04:01It picks up an arrow, draws the bowstring, and releases it.
04:05Then it takes a new arrow from the platform, which has changed position during the shot.
04:11Meanwhile, the archer artistically moves his head.
04:14In the 1740s, Archbishop Jakov von Dietrichstein built an automaton
04:19that was a theater with 200 figures on a single stage, all working at the same time.
04:25This is how he depicted the life of an ideal city.
04:29Coopers seal barrels.
04:30A bull is killed with a hammer.
04:33Builders lift planks onto buildings,
04:35while the aristocracy watches the common people's hard labor from above.
04:39Water in the mechanism turns a wheel,
04:42which, through several gears, transfers rotation to a drum.
04:47The drum contains instructions for each character.
04:50In this theater, automatons are closely connected with the art of clockmaking.
04:55As you can notice, it was almost always masters of this field who developed moving dolls.
05:02Many tower clocks with figures performing actions have been built around the world.
05:07For example, these are Prague's astronomical clocks.
05:10They were installed in 1410 and are the oldest working astronomical clocks.
05:16In the 17th century, moving figures were added to them.
05:20Death, a skeleton with a bell, and a crowing golden rooster.
05:24The most famous automaton in Russia is the Peacock Clock.
05:29Displayed in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg,
05:32the clock was made in Great Britain in the 1770s.
05:35Every Wednesday, the head of the Clock and Musical Mechanisms Laboratory
05:39at the State Hermitage, Mikhail Guryev, winds them up,
05:43after which the clock runs for eight hours.
05:46Catherine II paid 11,000 rubles for the clock.
05:50What was a ruble worth in the 18th century?
05:53At the beginning of the Catherine era, food prices were relatively low, but inflation was significant.
06:00The price of bread increased from 86 kopecks to 7.
06:05Telcovy were offered in the 1880s.
06:08Gears appeared in London in 1880.
06:12In the 1880s, in 1880 gears appeared,
06:16which in the 1880s were created for the purchased combined versions of online textile gears.
06:23We talked about Voluntary Teleclimatica, and they know how to perform at the foundation.
06:33Kuka Riku Pavlina was created by the London jeweler and inventor James Cox.
06:40Unfortunately, no photographs of him have survived.
06:43Another interesting work of his was a silver swan with a long, flexible neck,
06:48searching for food in a silver pond with fish.
06:51It runs for 40 seconds at a time,
06:53and during that period it seems almost alive,
06:57catching and eating a fish while working.
07:00Even the water looks real.
07:02It is made from rotating glass cylinders with notches of various shapes.
07:07In the 18th and 19th centuries,
07:10automatons were a form of entertainment for the wealthiest members of society.
07:14But these works of art were actually made by much poorer people,
07:19craftsmen who produced the components,
07:21and watchmakers who assembled them.
07:24To make more money,
07:25they needed to sell more mechanisms and possibly lower the price.
07:29The trend toward miniaturizing devices began as early as 300 years ago,
07:33with watches becoming smaller,
07:35and automatons also decreasing in size.
07:38Clock mechanisms that 500 years ago took up space in towers
07:42were reduced in size to the point where their much more complex versions
07:46could fit inside a doll's body,
07:48and then into a device the size of a jewelry box.
07:52Today, one of the most impressive examples of miniaturization
07:56is the thinnest mechanical watches.
07:59Their titanium case measures just 1.75 millimeters thick.
08:04Two bank cards stack together.
08:06That's 0.05 millimeters less than the previous record holder.
08:11What else do these watches have besides the Ferrari logo?
08:14Well, at the very least, a price tag of around $2 million.
08:19In the wild 1800s, of course, things were a bit different.
08:23An example of a miniature automaton
08:25is a bird in a cage made in the 1860s.
08:29Another remarkable example
08:30is the jeweled laurel tree Easter egg,
08:33made by the firm of Carl Fabergé in 1911
08:37at the request of Nicholas II.
08:39He gave it to his mother, Maria Fyodorovna.
08:43After winding the mechanism,
08:44the lid of the tree egg opens
08:46and a bird appears, turns around, and sings.
08:52By the way, the Jacquet Draws Company
08:55currently offers a wristwatch with an automaton.
08:58These watches with a singing bird cost 380,000 Swiss francs,
09:03which is 25.5 million rubles.
09:06Jacquet Draws is an old luxury Swiss watch brand.
09:10Its founder, Pierre Jacquet Draws,
09:12became world-famous for creating interior clocks and automatons,
09:17not electrical devices,
09:19but androids mimicking human and animal movements and sounds.
09:22In 1784, an automaton was created
09:26in the likeness of the Queen of France,
09:29Marie Antoinette.
09:30The doll moves its eyes,
09:32looks around,
09:33moves its head,
09:35breathes,
09:35and plays a musical instrument.
09:40Automatons not only played musical instruments,
09:42but were also capable of writing with a quill on paper.
09:46Of course, only very specific things.
09:49Reprogramming such a doll was not an easy task.
09:51The artist by that very master,
09:53Jacquet Draws,
09:54consists of 2,000 components.
09:56He is capable of drawing three pictures,
09:58a portrait of Louis N15
10:00and his dog with the inscription,
10:02Marie,
10:03Marie Antoinette with Louis XV eye
10:05and Cupid driving a chariot with butterflies.
10:09The mechanism's realism is enhanced
10:11by its additional actions.
10:13He squirms in his chair,
10:15nods his head,
10:15and blows away dust.
10:17It's hard to imagine
10:18how amazed people then
10:20must have been by this robot.
10:22A much more complex mechanism
10:24by Jacques Cedrault
10:25was called the calligrapher.
10:27The device is assembled from 6,000 parts,
10:30and the entire mechanism
10:31was placed inside the body of a doll.
10:33With a pen on paper,
10:35the boy carefully writes out the text,
10:37and after each letter,
10:38with his other hand,
10:40he moves the sheet of paper
10:41to start the next character,
10:43shakes the pen,
10:44and dips it into the inkwell.
10:46The symbols that the boy receives
10:48and writes on the paper
10:49are encoded on a round plate
10:51in the mechanism.
10:52This automaton is more like
10:54an automatic printing press or printer.
10:56What's amazing is
10:58that the master made it possible
10:59to change the text.
11:01The disc rotates,
11:03and the information about the symbols
11:04is transmitted sequentially
11:06to the operating mechanism.
11:08Inside the doll,
11:09a stack of eccentrics
11:11converted the disc's transmitted signal
11:13into hand movements.
11:14The Swiss watch brand,
11:16created by Pierre-Jacques Hedrault,
11:18still exists,
11:19and makes these automatons to order,
11:21with production taking a year.
11:23In 1810,
11:25the English craftsman of Swiss origin,
11:28Henri Mellardet,
11:29built a drawing writer.
11:31He wrote poems in three languages,
11:34and decorated them beautifully,
11:36and also drew images of Cupid
11:38in a garden
11:38or on the chariot
11:40of a Chinese temple ship.
11:41The result was pictures like these.
11:44Gaston de Camp,
11:45in 1907,
11:47assembled the automaton Zulma,
11:49the snake charmer.
11:51Here we see a girl opening her eyes,
11:53breathing,
11:54turning her neck,
11:55and a moving snake,
11:57all accompanied by music.
12:02In 1868,
12:04the American mechanic,
12:05Tzedak Dederick,
12:07invented the steam man,
12:08capable of pulling a load in a cab
12:11like three horses
12:12harnessed to the same carriage.
12:14Later,
12:14inspired by the steam man,
12:16the American writer,
12:17Edward Ellis,
12:18even wrote a science fiction novel,
12:20The Steam Man of the Prairies,
12:22in which people encounter
12:24a colossal man,
12:25powered by steam,
12:27in the American prairies.
12:28According to the plot,
12:30this steam man was constructed
12:32by a teenage boy,
12:33who uses the steam man
12:35to pull his carriage
12:36during various adventures.
12:38Automatons could be used
12:39to make money
12:40not only by selling them,
12:42but also by deceiving
12:43large numbers of people.
12:45One automaton stands out
12:47from previous mechanisms,
12:49able to imitate humans,
12:52think,
12:53analyze,
12:54and make decisions.
12:55This automatic chess machine
12:57was called
12:57the Mechanical Turk
12:58and was created
13:00by the Hungarian inventor,
13:01Wolfgang von Kempelen,
13:03in the second half
13:04of the 18th century.
13:06On the outside,
13:07the machine looked like
13:08a wooden sculpture,
13:09consisting of a life-sized mannequin
13:12attached to a wooden cabinet.
13:14According to its creator,
13:16the Mechanical Turk
13:17was capable of playing chess
13:18on par with a human
13:20and even beating them.
13:21Was it possible,
13:22based on 18th century technology,
13:24to create a functioning
13:26artificial intelligence?
13:27Let's not build up suspense,
13:29of course not.
13:30But that doesn't make
13:32the Mechanical Turk
13:33any less of an interesting phenomenon.
13:36The main advantage
13:36of the automaton
13:37was that a person inside
13:39controlled the Turk's hand,
13:41not just moving it,
13:42but actually grasping the pieces
13:44and moving them,
13:45as well as understanding
13:46where each piece was located.
13:48Thanks to the magnets
13:49on the underside
13:50of the main chessboard,
13:51this is an excellent example
13:53of an early manipulator.
13:55At the show's start,
13:57people saw the table's mechanism
13:59and empty shelves
14:00lit by a candle.
14:02The doors were closed,
14:04and the game began.
14:05During the game,
14:07the mannequin's right hand
14:08would pick up the pieces
14:09and move them
14:10across the chessboard,
14:11while its head seemed
14:12to follow the moves
14:13with its gaze.
14:14The automaton would announce
14:16a check to the king
14:17with a triple nod of its head.
14:18If the opponent tried to cheat,
14:20for example,
14:21by making an incorrect move,
14:23the Turk would stop playing
14:24and remain still
14:25until the mistake was corrected.
14:27Every 20 moves,
14:29von Kempelen would announce a break
14:30and wind up the mechanism
14:32with a key.
14:33News about the first
14:34steam-powered machine
14:35capable of matching a human
14:37and even surpassing
14:38human intelligence
14:39spread everywhere.
14:41After his first performance
14:42before the Empress of Austria,
14:44von Kempelen was literally
14:46flooded with invitations
14:47from other members
14:48of the royal family,
14:49nobility,
14:50and ministers.
14:51Von Kempelen,
14:53together with his chess machine,
14:55set out on a journey
14:56across Europe.
14:57During this journey,
14:58the Mechanical Turk
14:59faced various opponents,
15:00almost always defeating them
15:02each time.
15:03Von Kempelen readily demonstrated
15:05the Turk's mechanical construction,
15:07but he never allowed anyone
15:08to touch anything,
15:09making excuses about
15:11the extreme fragility
15:12of the mechanism
15:13and the delicacy
15:14of its settings.
15:15After Kempelen's death
15:16in 1804,
15:18the machine was purchased
15:19by the engineer
15:20and entrepreneur
15:21Johann Maelzel,
15:23who turned the Mechanical Turk
15:24into a real show,
15:26touring all over Europe
15:27and then the United States
15:28with it.
15:29He also made a number
15:30of improvements to it,
15:31in particular adding
15:33a sound device
15:34capable of saying,
15:35check.
15:36The machine played
15:36against Napoleon Bonaparte,
15:38Benjamin Franklin,
15:39and even Charles Babbage,
15:42the creator
15:42of the first proto-computer,
15:44defeating all of them
15:45thanks to Maelzel.
15:47These matches
15:47were widely covered
15:48by leading newspapers
15:49and magazines.
15:50The story of a thinking machine,
15:53of course,
15:53was too good to be true.
15:56Talks that the Turk
15:57was actually operated
15:58by a person sitting inside
16:00began almost from
16:01the very first demonstration
16:02of the automaton.
16:04The supposedly empty space
16:05inside the cabinet
16:07greatly troubled
16:08inquisitive minds.
16:09There was a theory
16:10that an experienced chess player
16:12could easily fit inside,
16:14watching the game
16:15through a system of mirrors
16:16and moving the pieces
16:17by reaching his hand
16:19into the mannequin.
16:20Edgar Allan Poe,
16:22among others,
16:23investigated the secret
16:24of the Turk.
16:25He studied Maelzel's apparatus
16:27as much as possible
16:28and came to the firm conclusion
16:30that the mannequin
16:31was not an automaton,
16:32but a puppet controlled
16:33by a person sitting
16:34inside the cabinet
16:35during the game.
16:37His detailed analysis,
16:39published in 1836,
16:41convinced people
16:42that this machine
16:43could not function
16:44on its own.
16:45The analysis led
16:46to a serious decline
16:47in the Turk's popularity,
16:48and after some time,
16:50Maelzel stopped receiving
16:52invitations
16:52to demonstrate the machine.
16:54After his death,
16:55the Turk was sold at auction
16:57and ended up
16:57in the Philadelphia Museum.
16:59That's when the true secret
17:00of this machine
17:01was finally revealed.
17:03In reality,
17:03the lower drawer
17:05and the left side
17:06of the cabinet,
17:06where the clockwork-like
17:08mechanism was placed,
17:09were designed
17:10in such a way
17:11that they only took up
17:12one-third of the space
17:14that they appeared
17:15to occupy.
17:15Both sections
17:17didn't reach
17:18the back of the cabinet,
17:19so a hidden,
17:20empty space
17:21was formed inside.
17:22This secret space
17:24was equipped
17:25with a movable chair
17:26that could move
17:27from one part
17:28of the cabinet
17:28to another,
17:30allowing the operator
17:31to remain hidden.
17:32when Fawn Kempelin
17:33and later Meltzel
17:34opened different machine doors
17:36during the demonstration.
17:38Of course,
17:38in such a position,
17:40the operator
17:40could not observe
17:41the chessboard
17:42in any way.
17:44However,
17:44powerful magnets
17:46were installed
17:46under the base
17:48of the heavy pieces
17:49placed on the chessboard.
17:50Inside the box,
17:51under each square,
17:52there was a metal ball
17:54attached to a vertically
17:55stretched string.
17:56When a piece was lifted,
17:58the ball would fall,
18:00signaling its movement.
18:01As soon as the piece
18:02was placed on a new square,
18:04the magnet would attract
18:05the corresponding ball.
18:07The player controlled
18:08the mannequin's hand
18:09through a complex system
18:10of levers and cables,
18:12and also manipulated
18:13the Turk's head.
18:14Unfortunately,
18:15in 1854,
18:18the original mechanical Turk
18:19was destroyed
18:20in a museum fire.
18:22Now,
18:22a replica is on display there,
18:25connected to a computer,
18:26and it can actually
18:27play chess.
18:28The very name
18:29of the device
18:30has, in a way,
18:31become a household term.
18:32For example,
18:33in 2005,
18:35the Amazon Mechanical Turk
18:36online platform
18:37was created,
18:39which allows individuals
18:40and entrepreneurs
18:41to hire people
18:42to solve tasks
18:43that computers
18:44are currently
18:45unable to handle.
18:46There is this
18:47unusual automaton
18:49made by the
18:49Bulgari manufactory,
18:51belonging to the rarest
18:52cast of automatons
18:54that have almost
18:55completely disappeared
18:56from watchmaking.
18:57The figurine
18:58of the Venetian player
18:59throws dice
19:00in a random order
19:01when the minute repeater
19:02mechanism is activated.
19:04A truly unique,
19:06unparalleled set
19:07consists of a wristwatch
19:09and a matching table doll.
19:12When technological progress
19:13moved forward,
19:14automatons were forgotten.
19:16Their place
19:16ended up in museums,
19:18and in rare cases,
19:20they entertained people
19:20at various events.
19:22Fortune-teller automatons
19:24were popular
19:24at 19th and 20th century fairs.
19:27They gave out predictions
19:28of fate on pieces of paper,
19:30pointed to cards or runes.
19:32Usually,
19:32they looked like
19:33mechanical gypsy women.
19:35But there were
19:36other versions as well.
19:37These wind-up robots
19:38were made to appear
19:39in the famous
19:40British television series
19:41Doctor Who.
19:43According to the plot,
19:44the automatons
19:45from the 51st century
19:46tried to repair
19:48a spaceship
19:48using the organs
19:49of dead crew members,
19:50as well as
19:51living people.
19:52An automaton
19:53in the form
19:54of a severed human hand
19:55is on display
19:56at the Swiss Watch Museum.
19:58It is capable
19:59of writing
19:59not only individual words,
20:01but also entire sentences.
20:03The undertaker's cabinet
20:04is an unusual automaton
20:05that depicts
20:06a full-fledged
20:07frightening scene.
20:08When the coffin
20:09is placed in position,
20:10a skeleton's head
20:11appears behind it.
20:13The corpse
20:13rises from the coffin
20:15and turns its head
20:16toward the viewer.
20:17Then,
20:18the skeleton hides,
20:19and its place
20:20is taken by the devil.
20:22A tiger
20:22devouring a white man
20:24in the form
20:24of a British soldier
20:26belonged to one
20:27of the rulers
20:27of India
20:28in the 18th century.
20:29The automaton
20:30was created
20:31as a symbol
20:32of protest
20:32against British rule.
20:34In 2016,
20:36you could see
20:37a figure of Donald Trump
20:38with glowing red eyes
20:40on the streets
20:40of America,
20:42predicting the future
20:43of the country.
20:44Look into my crystal ball
20:45and you will see
20:47the future of America.
20:48I see huge investments
20:50in a modern,
20:51high-speed,
20:51high-speed rail system.
20:53Very advanced.
20:55Very fast.
20:56And we're using
20:57the new trains
20:58to deport
20:5911 million illegal Mexicans.
21:02And by the way,
21:03I love Mexicans.
21:05I love putting them
21:06on trains like cattle.
21:08I build the best
21:09deportation trains.
21:11Believe me,
21:12my trains are the best.
21:14Soon after,
21:15the machine
21:15had already
21:16left its location.
21:17It was loaded
21:18onto a truck
21:19and taken away immediately.
21:21Shortly after the train,
21:22a video appeared
21:23on the internet,
21:24posted by one
21:25of the witnesses.
21:25You look like
21:26a very, very
21:27recent immigrant.
21:30That's the story
21:31about robots
21:31from the 18th century.
21:33That's all for today.
21:35Also,
21:36check out this episode
21:37where we've collected
21:38the most unique engines
21:39that you definitely
21:41haven't seen yet.
21:42This video
21:42is also interesting.
21:44YouTube chose it for you.
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