As I proved in my robot moths and bedbugs, I can work up electronic circuits that seem to duplicate one particular function of animal nerve tissue—one robot is attracted to light like a moth, the other is repelled by light like a bedbug—but I don't know how to go about duplicating the tissue itself in all its functions. And until we can duplicate nerve tissue, there's no way to provide our artificial limbs with a neuro-motor system that can be hooked up with the central nervous system. The best I can do along those lines is ask Kujack to kick and get a wriggle of the big toe instead.
So the perspective is clear. Mechanically, kinesthetically, motorically, I can manufacture a hell of a fine leg. Neurally, it would take decades, centuries maybe, to get even a reasonable facsimile of the original—and maybe it will never happen. It's not a project I'd care to devote my life to. If Len Ellsom had been working on that sort of thing, he wouldn't have gotten his picture in the paper so often, you can be sure.
So, in line with this perspective, I've divided the whole operation into two separate labs, K-Pro and N-Pro. I'm taking charge of K-Pro myself, since it intrigues me more and I've got these ideas about using solenoids to get lifelike movements. With any kind of luck I'll soon have a peach of a mechanical limb, motor-driven and with its own built-in power plant, operated by push-button. Before Christmas, I hope.
Got just the right man to take over the neuro lab—Goldweiser, my assistant. I weighed the thing from every angle before I made up my mind, since his being Jewish makes the situation very touchy: some people will be snide enough to say I picked him to be a potential scapegoat. Well, Goldweiser, no matter what his origins may be, is the best neuro man I know.
Of course, personally—although my personal feelings don't enter into the picture at all—I am just a bit leery of the fellow. Have been ever since that first log-cutting expedition, when he began to talk in such a peculiar way about needing to relax and then laughed so hard at Len's jokes. That sort of talk always indicates to me a lack of reverence for your job: if a thing's worth doing at all, etc.
Of course, I don't mean that Goldweiser's cynical attitude has anything to do with his being Jewish; Len's got the same attitude and he's not Jewish. Still, this afternoon, when I told Goldweiser he's going to head up the N-Pro lab, he sort of bowed and said, "That's quite a promotion. I always did want to be God."
I didn't like that remark at all. If I'd had another neuro man as good as he is, I'd have withdrawn the promotion immediately. It's his luck that I'm tolerant, that's all.
November 6, 1959
Lunch with Len today, at my invitation. Bought him several Martinis, then brought up Lundy's name and asked who he was, he sounded interesting.