| Author | Pierre Boulle |
| Title | The Perfect Robot (Le Robot Parfait) |
| Medium | Short Story |
| Original Language | French |
| Original Publication Date | 1951 |
| Original Source | Contes de l’Absurde |
| Source Type | Collection |
| Translator | Xan Fielding and Elisabeth Abbott |
| Additional Publication Information | English translation in 1966. Collected in his anthology, “Time out of Mind and Other Stories”. Pierre Boulle was also the author of “Bridge on the River Kwai” and “Planet of the Apes”. |
The brilliant Professor Fontaine invents perfect robots to play chess… and the resulting reshaping of his research…
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One response to “(1951) The Perfect Robot (Le Robot Parfait)”
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The brilliant Professor Fontaine invented a series of remarkable machines. Among them was a chess robot that in every possible position was capable of finding the one correct move involving no risk of losing the game. The chess player was, of course, quite a formidable opponent until some rival researchers working on the same principle, developed an automaton as ingenious as the original. The result was the perfect game of chess, always running the same identical course and always resulting in a draw. Eventually, however, Professor Fontaine realized that something was lacking in his chess player and in his other faultless machines. He then put them out of order, supplying the final human attribute: the ability to bungle.
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