Given my recent post about robots, I thought it worth a mention that today is the birthday of Karel Capek, the Czech writer who first introduced the term “Robot” to the world in his 1921 play R.U.R. (Although Karel is widely credited as the inventor of the word, it was actually his brother Josef who coined the term.)

For all you fans of artificial intelligence–if you’re ever in the Boston area, be sure to check out the MIT museum’s ongoing Robots and Beyond exhibit. It’s a fascinating collection of A.I.-related artifacts, films and actual machines.