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ROBOT

or automatonôtämˈətänˌ mechanical device designed to perform the work generally done by a human being. The Czech dramatist Karel Čapek popularized the expression [Czech,=compulsory labor] in his play R. U. R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), produced in Prague in 1921. Modern robotics has produced innumerable devices that replace human personnel, and the term robot is used to designate much of this machinery. It is used frequently in fiction, referring to a self-controlling machine shaped like a human being. While the concept has been the subject of stories since the golem of medieval times, it reached its greatest exposure in popular culture with the work of Isaac Asimov in the 1950s and the motion picture robots Robby in Forbidden Planet (1956) and C-3PO in Star Wars (1977).

See G. Wood, Edison's Eve: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life (2002).

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The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. All rights reserved.

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Publication Information: Encyclopedia Article Title: Robot. Encyclopedia Title: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Publisher: Columbia University Press. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 2004.
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