Posotronic Brain(DATA)
Ralph P Carpenter
>Can someone please explain what a Positronic Brain is, according to
>Asimov's theory?
Our (as opposed to the Trekverse Asimov) Good Doctor has
stated that he doesn't have a clue as to what a positronic brain is.
While writing one of his early Robot stories, he read an interesting
science article on a (then) just-discovered sub-atomic particle called
a 'positron', and decided to base his robots on 'positronic'
technology, which sounded much more futuristic than mere 'electronic'
stuff (which was also pretty new-fangled at the time.)
A 'positron', by the way, is the anti-particle of the
electron. Yes, that's right, it's a part of A N T I M A T T E R ...
--
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Pat Berry
> Can someone please explain what a Posotronic Brain is, according to
> Asimov's theory?
Asimov himself addressed that question in an essay called "The Word I
Invented," which can be found in his collection *Counting the Eons*.
The essay is in a question-and-answer format. Here is the relevant
passage:
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Q: I frequently hear your robots referred to as *positronic* robots.
Why positronic?
A: When I first began writing science fiction stories, the positron had
been discovered only six years before as a particle with all the
properties of an electron except for an opposite charge. It was the
first (and, at that time, still the only) bit of antimatter that had
been discovered, and it carried a kind of science fictional flavor about
it.
That meant that if I spoke of *positronic robots* rather than
*electronic robots*, I would have something exotic and futuristic
instead of something conventional.
What's more, positrons are very evanescent particles, at least in our
world. They don't survive more than a millionth of a second or so
before they bump into one of the electrons with which our world is
crowded, and then the two annihilate each other.
I had a vision, therefore, of "positronic pathways" along which
positrons briefly flashed and disappeared. These pathways were
analogous to the neurons of the animal nervous system and the positrons
themselves were analogous to the nerve impulse. The exact nature of the
pathways was controlled by positronic potentials, and where certain
potentials were set prohibitively high, certain thoughts or deeds became
virtually impossible. It was the balance of such potentials which
resulted in the Three Laws.
Of course, it takes a great deal of energy, on the subatomic scale, to
produce a positron; and that positron, when it encounters an electron
and is annihilated, produces a great deal of energy on the subatomic
scale. Where does that positron-producing energy come from and where
does the positron-annihilation energy go to?
The answer to that is that I didn't know and didn't care. I never
referred to the matter. The assumption (which I didn't bother to state)
was that future technology would handle it and that the process would be
so familiar that nobody would wonder about it or comment upon it--any
more than a contemporary person would worry about what happens in a
generating plant when a switch is flicked and a bathroom light goes on.
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In other words, "positronic brain" is just a buzz-phrase that Asimov
made up, and it doesn't mean anything.
Pat Berry p...@ramona.Cary.NC.US