William Grey Walter
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (August 2018) |
William Grey Walter | |
---|---|
Born | February 19, 1910 Kansas City, Missouri, United States |
Died | May 6, 1977 | (aged 67)
Nationality | American |
Citizenship | United Kingdom |
Known for | Brain Wave, Delta wave, Alpha wave, Autonomous robot |
Spouse | Vivian Dovey |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Robotics, neurophysiology |
William Grey Walter (February 19, 1910 – May 6, 1977) was an
Early life and education
Walter was born in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, on 19 February 1910, the only child of Minerva Lucrezia (Margaret) Hardy (1879–1953), an American journalist and Karl Wilhelm Walter (1880–1965), a British journalist who was working on the Kansas City Star at the time. His parents had met and married in Italy, and during the First World War the family moved to Britain. Walter's ancestry was German/British on his father's side, and American/British on his mother's side. He was brought to England in 1915, educated at Westminster School with an interest in classics and science, and entered King's College, Cambridge, in 1928. He achieved a third class in part one (1930) and a first class in physiology in part two of the natural sciences tripos (1931).[1]
He failed to obtain a research fellowship in Cambridge and so turned to doing basic and applied neurophysiological research in hospitals, in London, from 1935 to 1939 and then at the
Brain waves
As a young man, Walter was greatly influenced by the work of the Russian physiologist
In the 1930s, Walter made a number of discoveries using his
During the
In the 1960s, Walter also went on to discover the
Walter's experiments with stroboscopic light, described in The Living Brain,[3] inspired the development of the Dreamachine by the artist Brion Gysin and technician Ian Sommerville, a device that has evolved into electronic devices known as mind machines.
Robots
Grey Walter's best-known work was his construction of some of the first electronic
In one experiment, Walter placed a light on the "nose" of a tortoise and watched as the robot observed itself in a mirror. "It began flickering," he wrote. "Twittering, and jigging like a clumsy Narcissus."[citation needed] Walter argued that if it were seen in an animal it "might be accepted as evidence of some degree of self-awareness."
One of the tortoises was modified, (given the pretend scientific name Machina docilis) and added to its simple single celled "brain" one, then two conditional reflex circuits in which they could be taught simple behaviors similar to Ivan Pavlov's dogs.[citation needed] This tortoise was called CORA. One of these included that being hit meant food whilst whistling means food, and when conditioned such a whistle by itself means being hit. When he added another circuit tuned to a whistle of another pitch, this could become whistle means being hit, whistle means food, and this would make the animal become "afraid" whenever food was presented. Walter remedied this behaviour by severing the two additional circuits, and the tortoise reverted to being a Machina speculatrix. The conditioned reflex behaviour was later placed into a static desktop model, also known as CORA.
Later versions of Machina speculatrix were exhibited at the Festival of Britain in 1951.[7] Walter stressed the importance of using purely
In 2000, an original tortoise went on display in London, UK, in the Science Museum.[8] In 1995, this robot was also replicated by Dr. Owen Holland and Ian Horsfield[9] of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory using some of the original parts.[10] An original tortoise as seen at the Festival of Britain is in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution.
Walter's papers including his letters, photographs and press cuttings form part of the Burden archive held at the Science Museum Library & Archives in Wroughton
Private life
Walter married twice. His first wife was Katherine Monica Ratcliffe (1911-2012), daughter of
Walter's second wife was the radiographer Vivian Dovey (1915-1980). They married in Bristol 1947[12] and had one child, Timothy Walter (1949-1976) before separating in 1960, and divorcing in 1973.[13] It has been noted that Walter and his institution gave a male biased view of their work. Vivian Dovey was a significant collaborator, yet she was depicted as a wife or assistant who cared for him.[11]
From 1960 to 1972, Walter lived with Lorraine Josephine Aldridge (née Donn), former wife of Keith Aldridge.[1] Vivian Dovey lived with Keith Aldridge and later took his name after her divorce.[13]
Books and articles
- An Electromechanical Animal, Dialectica (1950) 4(3):206—213
- An imitation of life, Scientific American (1950) 182(5):42—45
- A machine that learns, Scientific American (1951) 185(2):60—63
- The Living Brain, ISBN 978-0393001532
- The Living Brain, Duckworth, London, 1953
- The Living Brain, [1953], Penguin, London, 1961
- Contingent negative variation: An electrical sign of sensorimotor association and expectancy in the human brain, Nature (1964) 203:380-384
- Grey Walter: The Pioneer of Real Artificial Life, Holland, Owen E. *Proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Artificial Life, Christopher Langton Editor, ISBN 0-262-62111-8, pp. 34–44
- Walter's world, New Scientist, 25 July 1998
- The Tortoise and the Love Machine': Grey Walter and the Politics of Electro-encephalography', Hayward, Rhodri, Science in Context (2001) 14(4):615–642
- "The Curve of the Snowflake," Norton, 1956. Also published in the UK as "Further Outlook", London: Duckworth, 1956. Science Fiction novel concerning paradoxes and the Koch snowflake.
- Chapel of Extreme Experience: A Short History of Stroboscopic Light and the Dream Machine, New York: Soft Skull Press(2003)
References
- ^ required.)
- ^ Walter, William Grey. "My Miracle" (PDF). cyberneticzoo.com.
- ISBN 978-3-642-70913-5.
- ^ Bristol, University of. "2008: Grey Walter and his tortoises | News and features | University of Bristol". www.bristol.ac.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2021.
- ^ "Machina Speculatrix". www.extremenxt.com. Retrieved 26 August 2018.
- S2CID 143096137.
- ^ Mechanical Tortoise (1951), retrieved 11 September 2022
- ^ Holland, Owen. "Exploration and high adventure: The legacy of Grey Walter." Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences · November 2003. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/9025611_Exploration_and_high_adventure_The_legacy_of_Grey_Walter
- ^ BRL Core Staff, retrieved 18 May 2023
- ^ The Grey Walter Online Archive, retrieved 18 May 2023
- ^ S2CID 188862918.
- ^ "England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005 (1947)". www.ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 11 September 2022.
- ^ a b "Vivian Joan Aldridge | Science Museum Group Collection". collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk. Retrieved 11 September 2022.
External links
- The Grey Walter Picture Archive On-Line, University of West England
- The Grey Walter On-Line Archive Archived 9 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine, University of West England
- Brief review of Grey Walter's science-fiction novel, "The Curve of the Snowflake"
- William Grey Walter's Machina Speculatrix – aka Turtle on the Beam Robotics Wiki
- The full story of Grey Walter's Tortoises