Reviews from the past: the Mechanical Turk

For the next of my Reviews From the Past I've dug out a review of another popular science book and yes, it is another one I found utterly fascinating, a look at some quite incredible mechanical automata, ingenious clockwork devices of astonishing intricacy which counterfeited life. As well as entertaining they also raised philosophical questions about the nature of life and the possibility of artificially creating life and intelligence, questions which have come to the fore once more in our digital age as we build ever more powerful computers, learning system and robotic designs. Its a story of invention and showmanship that takes in crowned heads of Europe, signatories of the Declaration of Independence, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Babbage and even PT Barnum as the Mechanical Turk crosses continents and history. This review dates from 2002 and first appeared on The Alien Online.

The Mechanical Turk,
By Tom Standage,
Allen Lane, Penguin Press



A chess playing automaton from the 1770s – father of modern AI or a clever illusion from an age of wonders?

It is the mid-1760s, the beginning of the Age of Reason. Science and engineering are creating new wonders almost every week. Intricate clockwork automatons are devised which highlight the ingenuity and skill of the mechanical age – skills often used for more practical purposes, such as Watt’s perfection of the steam engine or Jacquard’s loom. Mechanical trumpet players and flute players, with moving fingers, artificial lungs and a range of music to play. Mechanical ducks that swim, splash around, flap their wings and even eat food proffered to them. Such devices delighted the Europeans of the time, much as the Victorians would delight in intricate clockwork toys for their children a century later. Into this time comes the Turk.

Devised by Wolfgang von Kempelen, a nobleman in the service of Empress Maria Therese, this was a life-sized automaton, dressed in the oriental style popular at the time. Seated at a cabinet with a chess board before him, this Turk was rotated around on castors while his panels and doors were opened and a light shone through to show his inner workings and ensure no trickery was possible, much in the way a stage magician will do with his cabinet before an illusion today. A challenge for a player was given and soon the Turk was not only astounding the court by playing chess against a man, he was beating the human player. Mechanical fingers grasped pieces and moved them precisely, his hand would rap on the cabinet impatiently if the opponent took too long to move and illegal moves were swiftly adjusted.

Kempelen was keen to move onto his other devices, but the Turk was to overshadow him for the rest of his life. Ordered to take it around Europe, it appeared before the great and good of the land. Doctor Johnson and Charles Babbage were amazed by it. Babbage, like many was not sure it was truly machine intelligence, it may have been a trick. But if it was true mechanical thinking, then could he not use similar mechanics to create a calculating machine? A Difference Engine? Napoleon plays the machine, as does the great American scientists and diplomat Benjamin Franklin.

Long after Kempelen’s death, the Turk had his career, now under the stewardship of Maelzel, an automaton maker with a flair for showmanship. A young Scot is intrigued by the device and the speaking machine of Kempelen’s which has been fitted to it to allow it to say ‘check.’ An artificial voice? Could such a voice be transmitted in some way, Bell wondered, as with the new-fangled telegraph?

In America the Turk plays the last surviving signatory of the Declaration of Independence (it throws the game) and is written about extensively, just as it was in Europe. Many speculated about what trick it conceals. Is there a dwarf hidden in a small compartment inside the machinery? Is it a double amputee Polish officer hiding form the Czar? Or does the operator use magnets or wires? But it is moved around and opened, so how is this possible? Such speculation followed the Turk for a century and only increased its popularity. Even Edgar Allan Poe attempted to rationalise its mysteries, using a scientific detective model, which he would later use in his novels.

As with the wonderful Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester, Standage has created a compelling science history, which is as fascinating for the historical figures and events around the main character as it is for the actual tale itself. The idea of this device inspiring Babbage and laying the foundations for the information age, for Bell and his telephone – even the later operator Maelzel giving lessons in showmanship and publicity to a young P.T. Barnum – the characters are fascinating. Of such little interconnections are our histories made, as intricate as the clockwork of the automatons themselves.

Standage brilliantly captures the mood of a world where knowledge was progressing quickly and engineering the casually miraculous was becoming an almost everyday event. He wisely keeps his chapter on the real secrets of the Turk to the end of the book, allowing our interest to peak. We all loves a good show and we all love a good mystery – the Turk gave both for a century, as well as fuelling speculation about artificial intelligence to this day. The final chapters discuss chess playing machines and computer intelligence in our time, from the brilliant Alan Turing’s early programming to IBM’s Deep Blue finally beating the human chess champion, Kasparov. This final chapter cleverly reminds us that our own time has produced great marvels of our own, that we are direct inheritors of that age of genius and passion. This is a delightful scientific history that will appeal to the sense of wonder in us all.

Reviews from the past: Monturiol's Dream

Over the years I've written a large number of reviews of comics, books, graphic novels and movies and even the odd play (and now beer too). A lot appeared on the Library of Dreams, the first site I ever made and which I posted a lot of reviews on, along with some pics and some poetry I penned and which went defunct when the provider decided to stop making the free hosting free - the site stayed up for a good while after but I couldn't update it anymore. I was planning a new reviews site when my good mate Ariel suggested I contribute instead to The Alien Online and soon I was posting a lot of reviews to TAO, which grew to be practically a magazine online - reviews of comics, science fiction and fantasy were the backbone of TAO but we had articles and interviews and other features too, from a wide range of contributors, including several authors such as Adam Roberts and James Lovegrove.

When TAO finished its run it stayed up for a while too but now its gone too, so I was thinking, I still have a lot of those reviews tucked away in a folder and maybe it would be interesting to repost some of them myself. So now I'm slowly picking upon the Woolamaloo again I thought it would be a good time to start reposting some of them. I'm starting with one from 2003, a popular science book (although TAO was mostly SF we also posted on some interesting factual science works too) which I found absolutely fascinating:

Monturiol’s Dream,
By Matthew Stewart,
Published Profile Books



A socialist utopian dreamer tries to create a better world through science


Narcis Monturiol is a name I suspect that most people will not recognise, even those of us who fancy we have a fair smattering of the history of science. Born in Catalonia in 1819 Monturiol was one of those people who seem to be able to turn to whatever interest takes them and to be rather good at it. A remarkably intelligent man he was also very politically aware, his soul fired by the socialist dreams of a modern utopia where men and women (for Monturiol was a staunch advocate of the role of women) could live a better life. Despite his fervent belief in the progress to a utopian future he remained, unlike many others, committed to achieving this goal through non violent means. This gentle man, like many intellectuals around Europe in the 1800s, turned to the new sciences to create a better world.

Monturiol’s contribution to this better world would be a remarkable device - a submarine. To modern readers this may seem almost laughable, but Narcis was in deadly earnest. While others around the globe had struggled to create somewhat poor submersibles barely worthy of the name he would create a proper, sea-going submarine. At a time when the best attempts had produced small vessels that could stumble along a few feet under the water with a breathing hose sticking up through the waves (such as those used in the American Civil War) Monturiol would settle for nothing less than a fully functioning craft that could sustain life for hours and cruise the deep depths.

During times of great political turmoil he fired his friends and other residents of Catalonia with his dream. Constantly struggling with cash flow Monturiol, with no backing from any big company or government, used his collective to help him design, build and launch his ‘artificial fish’ the Ictineo. Lined with portholes so that they could see the marvels of the underwater world the Ictineo would have been remarkably impressive for a team of engineers working in a naval dockyard. For a self-taught man working within a socialist co-operative it was a stunning achievement.

The Ictineo was powered by several volunteers turning cranks. Monturiol, through much experimentation and thought had hit upon the idea of a double hull design to help the submarine sustain its integrity in the crushing depths - a design every submarine follows to this very day. Monturiol turned to chemistry and devised a mixture of compounds that would be mixed to generate fresh oxygen without ruining the cabin’s atmosphere with noxious gases as a by-product. The Ictineo could thus sustain a number of crewmen for many hours beneath the waves, giving ample time for exploration of the depths.

His attempts to raise more investment cash by attracting the government were not so successful however. Despite the backing of engineers and local Catalan politicians the admiralty was unimpressed. Monturiol even, reluctantly, added a canon to his ship to show that it cold be used offensively. Being the man he was he devised a method to fire this while still submerged. Fair to say this would have been a devastating weapon if it had been explored further. Monturiol rationalised this to himself by reasoning that this would level the playing field between navies such as Spain’s and France’s against the omnipotent might of the Royal Navy. Still the Spanish admirals were not impressed.

Once again Monturiol was rescued by friends, fellow socialists and the local Catalan people (who often came down to Barcelona’s harbour on a Sunday walk to see the marvel of the Ictineo diving and surfacing). A new co-operative managed to raise enough funds to being work on the Ictineo II. Monturiol was feted by the local population and politicians as a great inventor. Emboldened he sets to work on a much larger submarine. Ictineo II is capable of diving to depths of over thirty metres and sustaining life for many hours safely and comfortably. Monturiol devises manipulators on the hull to allow him to interact with the marine environment. His chemical knowledge allows him to create a mixture that will give him underwater illumination. The human-powered crank engine is replaced by a steam engine. Once again this amazing, self-taught man invents an astonishing way to power a steam engine underwater. Instead of a fire to stoke the boiler Monturiol uses a chemical reaction to generate heat to boil the water and drive the engine. This reaction also produces oxygen for the cabin and he employs more chemical means to scrub carbon dioxide from the air. The Ictineo II is, to all intent purposes, a fully functioning modern submarine.

Bear in mind that this is the mid 1860s. No-one else in the world would come up with anything so advanced for decades, yet here was a self-taught man who had made the fiction of Captain Nemo a reality before Verne ever wrote his wonderful novel. This was a man who took a concept which was science fiction and sculpted it into reality. He works out aqua dynamics, engineering principles of double hulls to withstand pressure, devices for interacting with the undersea environment and submersible locomotion and navigation, all by the 1860s. Unlike the many others around the world who tried to create a submarine - and usually failed, often fatally - Monturiol publishes detailed descriptions of his designs and methods so that others can copy and improve upon them. Still his utopian dream behind it all, a belief that this new type of artificial fish could help usher a new era in for humanity.

Of course we know today that the submarine as it was developed in the decades after Monturiol’s death was used more principally as a terrible weapon of war. And yet some glimmer of his original idea can still be seen today. Submersibles that can touch the very floor of the ocean - something Monturiol longed to do - and explore the myriad of new life found there in the darkest depths. Knowledge of our environment, tectonics and evolution have all been enhanced immeasurably by underwater exploration. How many of us thrilled to Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea when we were younger? What would Monturiol have made of the fantastic sights millions could view in their own home watching Blue Planet?

Monturiol’s Dream is a fascinating and utterly delightful scientific history. The history of those turbulent times in European and Spanish history are absorbing enough in their own right - the beginning of genuine attempts to have politics for the masses and a striving to make a better world using modern reason and science. The technical brilliance of Monturiol is undeniable and makes for remarkable reading. What I took most from this gorgeous little book however was the same thing I took from the finest SF novels - sense of pure wonder. This is a quite wonderful tale of a very gentle man who really wanted to change the world. Not for honours or riches, but because he believed it was the right thing to do, to create a finer world. Perhaps on some levels he did. Hopefully Matthew Stewart’s fine book will go some way to restoring Monturiol and his work to the place he deserves in the history of science.

Very silly people

It seems to be the week for seeing very, very stupid people on the road. Van driver gets fed up with the road works holding everything up (Edinburgh is grinding to a halt with roadworks), pulls out and drives past 3 double decker buses on the wrong side of the road to reach the next turn, narrowly missing the oncoming traffic he couldn't see before pulling out. Another van driver driving without actually using either of his hands as he needed both of them for the more important purpose of lighting his fag as he sailed through a junction (and since the an was a works van he shouldn't be smoking in it anyway). But the winner of the stupidest person who was happy to endanger someone else goes to the young woman who cycled past me with a toddler, no more than 3 or 4 years old, perched precariously on the saddle of the bicycle. And no, I don't mean on one of those little dinky kid seats some cyclists strap to the back of their bikes, this little toddler was left on an adult saddle holding on to the back of the woman as she stood on the pedals to cycle through busy rush hour traffic. One little bump and the kid is on the road and under the wheels of a bus before she would even notice. If a very stupid person wants to risk their own lives its one thing, but they don't seem to care that they risk other folk's safety.

Meet BoB: The Blog o' Beer

My friends and fellow real ale guzzlers Darren (better known to most SF folks as Ariel) and Ed and I have been planning a blog where we could post on one of our passions - proper beer, real ale as it is normally called. We've been planning it for ages and Ed and Darren got it up and running a few weeks ago. Since I have finally, albeit rather slowly and haltingly, returned to the personal world of blogging (as distinct from my work blogging for Forbidden Planet which has continued) this week I thought it was about time I started putting in some of my Tasting Notes as well and just posted my first couple up, starting off with a couple of Scottish ales, one from Bellhaven and one from my own doorstep, Edinburgh's Innis & Gunn, who actually use old oak casks to mature the beer, an unusual process for ales, more something you'd expect in a single malt really, but it gives them a distinctive colour and aroma. Anyway, Darren and Ed have several pieces up on the Blog o' Beer -or BoB as it is also known - and I've now added my first couple of tasting reviews.

The lost art of the outraged rant

A very, very dear friend said she wanted me to get back to writing on the Woolamaloo, that she missed my rants and sarcastic jibes. I probably will get back to those sometime, certainly there's been enough recently thoroughly deserving of being lampooned, but every time I try I just kind of fizzle out.

Rusted pipe

"Now the time has come to speak
I was not able
And water through a rusted pipe
Could make the sense that I do

Gurgle, mutter
Hiss, stutter
Moan the words like water
Rush and foam and choke

Having waited
This long of a winter
I fear I only
Croak and sigh

Somewhere deep within
Hear the creak
That lets the tale begin

Now the time has come to move
I was not able
Water through a rusted pipe
Could make the moves that I do

Stagger, stumble
Trip, fumble
I fear I only
Slip and slide

Somewhere deep within
Hear the creak
That lets the tale begin

Somewhere deep within
Hear the creak
That lets the tale begin"

Suzanne Vega, "Rusted Pipe" from Days of Open Hand.

I've always loved that song by Suzanne Vega, right from the warm tones of the marimba which plays under it, counterpointing its warmth against the melancholy of the lyrics. Now it seems very apt. I've struggled very hard to write something on here for months, since we lost mum. I'm still struggling, to be brutally honest, I can hardly keep my eyes clear at times. I've tried again and again to re-start the Woolamaloo in the last few weeks and months. Months already, how can that be? Already more of this year has passed by without my mum in it than the months of it she was here with us and its so damned wrong. I've never left the blog alone so long; the fifth anniversary came and went and I didn't give a damn. I'm finding it hard to care about much right now and yes, I know that's selfish but again I really don't care. Everything for me has become separated into Before and After now.

Each time I tried to restart I simply couldn't. I'd look at the last post in March, still deliriously happy from my time in Paris and then at the following one, the brief one, all I could hold myself together long enough to write. And I'd think how did I get from there to here. Back home in Glasgow among the dozens of family pictures on the walls there's one of me, a school picture, primary school years, little freckled face, bright red hair and blue eyes, next to it me in my mid twenties, long hair, cape, standing at my graduation. And I'd look at them and think how did I get from there to there to here? How did it happen? Why did it bloody happen? When dad was in hospital last Christmas, scaring the hell out of me, I remember returning to the family home. There was no-one in, mum had been in visiting him while I was on the train on the way through after my boss kindly told me to just leave and go home. And, worried though I was, I saw among the photos one of my uncle, the Comrade, who we lost a couple of years ago after a long fight. He's smiling in that pic and in the instant I looked at it I knew it was going to be alright, that dad would be fine and be home with us for Christmas. I didn't know it would be our last Christmas all together. And I found myself in April looking at that same picture and begging the Comrade to please, please, please make it alright now.

But he can't and no-one can. And that hurts more than anything in the world.

No-one can fix it, no-one can make it better, its a wound that I know never heals. To hell with all that 'time heals all' nonsense; I never believed that for an instant before and I certainly don't now. It doesn't heal; like Lancelot's wound it never truly heals. It might, as a good writer friend of mine who lost his mother a couple of years ago said, scar over the wound but the scar and the pain are there below it, they don't go away. Dad lost his mother when he was just a boy; that was half a century ago now and the pain is still there. I feel tired all the time. I've slowly gotten back to sleeping more regularly, unlike my poor old dad who hasn't slept right since it happened. But its not restful. I've never been great at getting up in the morning but this isn't my usual reluctance to get out of bed and wake up properly. Its more that I don't want to get up. I don't want to go out and face the world that's taken her away from us. Its a bloody struggle every single bloody day. Its a struggle to go to social events and weddings and gatherings, its a struggle just to go to work some days. I'm tired deep down and no amount of rest is helping that. My soul is weary, weary, weary and wondering is this it, is this all there is now but the slow, inevitable descent, losing the rest of the people you love until you find yourself one day alone and old and wishing it was your turn? I'm a cynic but also an optimist usually, but at the moment its hard to see past that sort of feeling.

And I don't think a lot of people get that. They see you, you seem normal. I walk, I talk, I make my usual bad jokes (inherited from dad) and they think isn't he coping well. No, I'm not. I'm really not. I'm drifting. One of the anchors for my life has been ripped away from me and I'm drifting in the current without any ability or even urge to put my hand on the tiller. I'm on autopilot a lot of the time, just getting through the work day and going home. I get out, make myself go out, go to films, festival shows and I do enjoy them and they do distract me for a while, usually, but afterwards the pain is still there, lingering. It washes over me a dozen times a day, every day. I doubt the folks I work next to even realise there must be so many moments during the day when I have to stop for a moment and try to hold it together as another black wave comes across. And I don't think some folks around realise how brittle it leaves me, how even small arguments or tensions at work or home cut right through because you have no patience and you have to bite your tongue and suppress an angry retort because emotions are right at the surface right now.

And I don't think they get that at all. A part of me is broken and it won't ever be fixed. When someone is in a dreadful accident they may spends months in surgery and then therapy to walk again. And even when they do they never walk the same way as they did before and always the memory of that trauma is there, waiting to pounce on them at any time without warning. Its much the same with loss like this. I'm slowly trying to learn how to get on, but even as I do I know I won't be the same again. I'm not the person I was in March, that Joe doesn't exist anymore except as a memory. Everything feels different now. When its bad I wonder why she isn't there to comfort me as she always did. When it ever gets good again - if it does - I'll wonder why she isn't there to share it with me. And yes, I know in a way she will be, but its not the same, its just not the same. And I know I am being indulgent - some kids never get the love and security that I've enjoyed since the day I was born, probably since before I was even born on a New Year's Eve years ago and I've had a lifetime of that love and I ache for those who never had that. But I'm still broken inside and the person you see is just a simulacra, not the same person as before. He might improve a bit but he's not going to be the same again and there's nothing that can make it better.

And that's the bitterest part of all. Nothing can ever make it better. There's no fix, no magic, nothing. Dad and I can alleviate some of it for each other but we can't fix it and that's the horrible, bitter reality of being born mortal. And I hate that feeling. Along with the sadness I feel angry at the world for doing this to us, for taking her from us just like that. Why so many evil, selfish people get to live to old age while my mum is taken at 61 I don't understand. If its god moving in his bloody mysterious ways then I'd like to give the old deity a good kicking because he deserves it. The headstone went up just a couple of weeks ago and that ripped me open again. Dad and I are up there every weekend with flowers and it upsets us terribly, but at the same time we can't not go up to visit her, to take flowers. I used to take flowers for my mum all the time or arrange to have them delivered to her on her birthday or mother's day and I loved how delighted she always was with them. And now taking her flowers spills my soul open. I could barely look at the bloody stone. Its a lovely stone my cousin and I picked out, but I still can hardly look at it. My mum's name is on a bloody stone and that's just not right, its never ever going to be right. I feel sick and tired most of the time and the smallest thing can set me off, even emotional scenes in the movies or books I try to distract myself with; I've got no armour left, my shield is shattered, my lance broken and my armour is all undone and I don't know if it can be mended. And if it can it will still never be the same. Its too much to bear sometimes. I loved her so much and the world took her away just like that and I can't bear it. I still can't work out how a heart so full of love can just stop. Why isn't it enough? It should be and it isn't and the universe doesn't care.

What happened?

I know I haven't posted for a while, folks, but I'm afraid my world has been turned upside down and pulled inside out and I feel like my heart has been too. I went to bed on Sunday 30th of March content after a pleasant late afternoon chatting to friends over drinks in my favoured haunt of the Caley Sample Room. And in the small, dark hours of the following morning a phone call, a sinking feeling because no-one phones at 3am for good news. Stagger out of bed, grab phone, its my dad. Its my dad more disraught than I've ever known him and through tears he's telling me we just lost my mum. I don't understand what's going on - I'm half asleep, mum wasn't in the pink but nothing serious that we knew of, what's going on, what does he mean. I'm still in shock shortly after as my cousin and uncle arrive to take me home to Glasgow, driving through the dark and I'm praying please let this be a bad dream, please let me wake up, please let me wake up, please let me wake up. It wasn't. We just buried my beautiful, warm, loving mother a couple of days ago and I feel like someone's ripped a chunk of my soul out.

I came home to Edinburgh today for the first time in over a week and when I checked my emails there was one from my mum, sent on that Sunday, which I hadn't seen because I had been out all day and because I never checked the following day because I was sitting back in Glasgow in shock with my dad wondering how this had happened to us so shockingly suddenly and why was it happening to us. She just got online a few weeks ago and was so proud about emailing the relatives in Canada and elsewhere. It was just one, short line, asking how I was and telling me her and dad had just booked their summer holidays - in fact there are two new cases they bought on Saturday lying unused in my room back home. It finishes 'see you Wednesday' - they were coming through to visit their wee boy and drop off his Easter egg. I didn't get to see her. Instead I saw her in the hospital and the spark that made her my mum was gone from her. And its not bloody fair, she was 61, her and dad retired only a year and I want to scream at the world for taking her from us. I wanted her to get up so badly, I touched her beautiful red hair and kissed her and she didn't get up and we had to leave her in that place. It feels like we've lived a year in the last nine or ten days, so damned hard and more than anything I need a cuddle from my mum and I can't have it and that's breaking my heart. I can't write anymore just now, its too raw and everytime I think I'm getting a grip something else will set me off again, I feel like my heart's made of glass. I wanted to write, to let some of it out but its just too hard right now.