Theseus - Life-sized Magnetic Mouse

Theseus - Life-sized magnetic mouse

Year: 1950 Creator: Claude Shannon Video: AT&T Website - (Original Bell Labs) "one of the world’s first examples of machine learning: a robotic maze-solving mouse known as Theseus. The Theseus of ancient Greek mythology navigated a minotaur’s labyrinth and escaped by following a thread he’d used to mark his path. But Shannon’s electromechanical toy was able to “remember” its path with the help of telephone relay switches.

As the film begins, Shannon’s wheeled mouse methodically explores its surroundings—a 25-square maze. Shannon tells viewers that the maze’s metal walls can be freely rearranged, so Theseus must use a small computing machine to learn the layout anew each time. But the mouse, a tiny wooden device containing a bar magnet and adorned with wire whiskers, is “far too small” to contain a computing machine, he says. Instead, the machinery is hidden beneath the floor of the maze, a series of telephone relay circuits he has repurposed to do something that they had never done before: learn." - MIT Technology Review