“Android” first appeared as the word “Androides” deep in the pages of Ephraim Chambers’ Cyclopædia, an English dictionary of mechanical and scientific terms, in 1728. Originally, it was used to refer to the efforts by alchemists to create a homunculus, or a “miniature, fully formed human” -- specifically those efforts by St. Albertus Magnus, a Catholic saint who lived in the 12th century Holy Roman Empire. By the mid-19th century, the term began to assume its modern definition as a robot with human-like qualities. In his 1886 science fiction novel, LÈve future (Tomorrow’s Eve), French author Auguste Villiers de lIsle-Adam tells the story of a fictionalized Thomas Edison who builds an “android” version of his friend’s wife -- “without the bothersome traits.” Retaining this meaning, the term gradually made its way to the United States, as evidenced by a series of patents for mechanized, humanoid “Doll Androides” filed by toy-makers. As a term, “Android” made thousands of appearances in science fiction works throughout the 20th century. In Edward Hamilton’s Captain Future (1940), a distinction was made between robots (mechanical beings not resembling humans), and androids (mechanical beings resembling humans). Philip K. Dick most famously employed the term in his series of android-related fiction throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, also agreeing that androids were generally “human” in appearance. In 1977, at the height of the term’s popular usage, George Lucas shortened it to “droid” -- used to refer C-3P0, R2D2, and other automatons in Star Wars -- and laid claim to the word. Today, a “droid” refers to “any robot, including distinctly non-human form machines.” And today, LucasFilm owns the copyright on the word.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 00:18:46 +0000
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