When was Bionics discovered??
The term “bionics” was created in 1958 by Jack. E. Steele, a worker at the Aeronautics Division House at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Steele was a medical doctor and Air Force Colonel who served in the force for twenty years following medical school and a teaching fellowship in neuro-anatomy. Note that when he coined the term Jack Steele was not referring to the concept of bionics as it has been popularized, but to the study of biological systems and organisms to find solutions to problems in engineering (this field is now called biomimetics).
Interestingly enough, it was Jack Steele’s work, and the new word, bionics, which attracted the attention of science fiction writer Martin Caidin, who in 1972 wrote a book called Cyborg, which actually referenced Steele. This book was the basis for The Six Million Dollar Man, the TV series which, while highly inaccurate in its representation of the field, was instrumental in popularizing the concept of bionics.
Flying like a bird, swimming like a fish or constructing like insects – the dream to be able to do these things is as old as mankind itself. Again and again, natural models inspired researchers to ideas for new inventions, from flying apparatuses based on nature's models to roofs constructed like a spider's web or seashell.
In Greek mythology, Daedalos made wings for his son Icarus and himself, modelled after the wings of birds to escape the tyrant Minos. During their escape, however, Icarus came too close to the sun and the wax, which glued the wings together, melted and the feathers came undone – Icarus plummeted into the sea. Although Daedalos' notion was quite visionary for the later scientific discipline 'bionics', it was not its beginning. And we can learn something else from this myth: doing bionics does not mean copying nature.
Leornardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519) was a universal genius. He was an artist, philosopher, scientist and the first real bionic researcher. After studying the flight of birds, he wrote his classic opus 'Sul vol degli uccelli' already in 1505 and constructed flying apparatuses, helicopters, and parachutes. Alas, the time was not ready yet and prevented his ideas from being turned into real products.
Inspired by Leonardo, a Turkish savant, Hezarfen Ahmed Celebi (1609 – 1649), also studied the flight of birds and developed a flying apparatus, with which he took off from the Galata Tower in Istanbul, crossed the Bosporus, and landed in Uskudar.
During the 16th century, England was busy quarreling with Spain over the supremacy on the oceans. In this situation, the Englishman Matthew Baker was inspired by nature in the field of ship building as early as 1590. Practical observation of nature gave him the idea of constructing a ship's hull after the model of a cod's head and a mackerel's tail. This endowed the Baker galleon – named after its inventor – with an improved maneuverability and a reduction in drag.
Another bionic pioneer was Sir George Cayley (1773 – 1857), an English noble squire, who was dedicated to – as we would call it today – aviation physics. Back then, it was known as 'aeronautics'. Cayley invented the first auto-stabilized flying model and developed the first efficient parachute. The model for his parachute was the common Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon (Tragopogon pratensis). He studied its fruit in 1829 and realized, why the fruit bodies float through the air in an auto-stabilized manner. The center of mass of these fruit bodies is very low and the carrying sail area is not flat but folded upward along the edge. With Cayley's parachute, the center of mass is also very low and the canopy area is folded upward along the edge.
Since the 1950s, bionics has been steadily advancing. Further milestones were a symposium in the USA in 1960, where the term 'bionics' was introduced and in 1993, when the German term 'Bionik' was defined at a symposium of the German Association of Engineers. The then leading people in the field of bionics defined it as 'a scientific discipline, which deals with the technical implementation and application of constructional, processing, and developmental principles of biological systems'. [3]
Interestingly enough, it was Jack Steele’s work, and the new word, bionics, which attracted the attention of science fiction writer Martin Caidin, who in 1972 wrote a book called Cyborg, which actually referenced Steele. This book was the basis for The Six Million Dollar Man, the TV series which, while highly inaccurate in its representation of the field, was instrumental in popularizing the concept of bionics.
Flying like a bird, swimming like a fish or constructing like insects – the dream to be able to do these things is as old as mankind itself. Again and again, natural models inspired researchers to ideas for new inventions, from flying apparatuses based on nature's models to roofs constructed like a spider's web or seashell.
In Greek mythology, Daedalos made wings for his son Icarus and himself, modelled after the wings of birds to escape the tyrant Minos. During their escape, however, Icarus came too close to the sun and the wax, which glued the wings together, melted and the feathers came undone – Icarus plummeted into the sea. Although Daedalos' notion was quite visionary for the later scientific discipline 'bionics', it was not its beginning. And we can learn something else from this myth: doing bionics does not mean copying nature.
Leornardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519) was a universal genius. He was an artist, philosopher, scientist and the first real bionic researcher. After studying the flight of birds, he wrote his classic opus 'Sul vol degli uccelli' already in 1505 and constructed flying apparatuses, helicopters, and parachutes. Alas, the time was not ready yet and prevented his ideas from being turned into real products.
Inspired by Leonardo, a Turkish savant, Hezarfen Ahmed Celebi (1609 – 1649), also studied the flight of birds and developed a flying apparatus, with which he took off from the Galata Tower in Istanbul, crossed the Bosporus, and landed in Uskudar.
During the 16th century, England was busy quarreling with Spain over the supremacy on the oceans. In this situation, the Englishman Matthew Baker was inspired by nature in the field of ship building as early as 1590. Practical observation of nature gave him the idea of constructing a ship's hull after the model of a cod's head and a mackerel's tail. This endowed the Baker galleon – named after its inventor – with an improved maneuverability and a reduction in drag.
Another bionic pioneer was Sir George Cayley (1773 – 1857), an English noble squire, who was dedicated to – as we would call it today – aviation physics. Back then, it was known as 'aeronautics'. Cayley invented the first auto-stabilized flying model and developed the first efficient parachute. The model for his parachute was the common Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon (Tragopogon pratensis). He studied its fruit in 1829 and realized, why the fruit bodies float through the air in an auto-stabilized manner. The center of mass of these fruit bodies is very low and the carrying sail area is not flat but folded upward along the edge. With Cayley's parachute, the center of mass is also very low and the canopy area is folded upward along the edge.
Since the 1950s, bionics has been steadily advancing. Further milestones were a symposium in the USA in 1960, where the term 'bionics' was introduced and in 1993, when the German term 'Bionik' was defined at a symposium of the German Association of Engineers. The then leading people in the field of bionics defined it as 'a scientific discipline, which deals with the technical implementation and application of constructional, processing, and developmental principles of biological systems'. [3]
Timeline of Bionics history
1945: Willen J. Koff develops the first kidney dialysis machine.
1950: The Turing Test is created by Alan Turing. The test is a process in which a “judge” engages a computer and a real person in “conversation.” The computer passes the test if the judge cannot determine which party is the compute
1958: In the same year as Jack Steele invented the term bionics, the first artificial pacemaker is fully implanted into a human patient, at Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden. This early experiment is not a great success, however, as the implant is functional for only three hours.
1961: A computer-operated mechanical hand is developed at MIT.
1962: High-density polythene—which would later be used in artificial hip joints—is developed by John Charnley.
1971: Bausch & Lomb develop the world’s first soft contact lens.
1978: The multi-channel cochlear implant, which allows the recipient to hear by mimicking the function of the cochlea, is first used.
1987: A patient with advanced Parkinson’s disease is fitted with a deep-brain electrical stimulation implant.
1996: Scottish researchers announce they have produced the first cloned mammal: a sheep named Dolly.
1997: World chess champion Garry Kasparov is beaten by a computerized chess machine called Deep Blue.
1999: AIBO, the first artificially intelligent pet, is introduced by Sony. The pet can walk, see, and understand and respond to spoken instructions.
2000: An artificial silicon retina is implanted into a human eye. The artificial retina is made from silicon microchips which contain thousands of tiny light-converting units.
2001: Amputee Jesse Sullivan receives a fully robotic arm developed by the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. The arm has a nerve muscle graft which allows him to use his own thoughts to move the artificial limb.
[2]
1950: The Turing Test is created by Alan Turing. The test is a process in which a “judge” engages a computer and a real person in “conversation.” The computer passes the test if the judge cannot determine which party is the compute
1958: In the same year as Jack Steele invented the term bionics, the first artificial pacemaker is fully implanted into a human patient, at Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden. This early experiment is not a great success, however, as the implant is functional for only three hours.
1961: A computer-operated mechanical hand is developed at MIT.
1962: High-density polythene—which would later be used in artificial hip joints—is developed by John Charnley.
1971: Bausch & Lomb develop the world’s first soft contact lens.
1978: The multi-channel cochlear implant, which allows the recipient to hear by mimicking the function of the cochlea, is first used.
1987: A patient with advanced Parkinson’s disease is fitted with a deep-brain electrical stimulation implant.
1996: Scottish researchers announce they have produced the first cloned mammal: a sheep named Dolly.
1997: World chess champion Garry Kasparov is beaten by a computerized chess machine called Deep Blue.
1999: AIBO, the first artificially intelligent pet, is introduced by Sony. The pet can walk, see, and understand and respond to spoken instructions.
2000: An artificial silicon retina is implanted into a human eye. The artificial retina is made from silicon microchips which contain thousands of tiny light-converting units.
2001: Amputee Jesse Sullivan receives a fully robotic arm developed by the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. The arm has a nerve muscle graft which allows him to use his own thoughts to move the artificial limb.
[2]