What is the Positronic brain coined by Asimov?

Question

What exactly is the Positronic brain coined by Asimov?

I encountered this term several times without having a clear understand of what it means and what "positronic" mainly means can you clarify it :)

Answer 1

Asimov was very vague about the construction of these brains. Presumably they use positrons, which are antielectrons. Which would suggest they must have powerful magnetic fields. They are also described as being constructed of a platinum and iridium alloy.

Star Trek: TNG lifted the idea for Data's brain. While having nothing to do with Asimov, it does offer some insight into how others viewed his ideas. Same goes for the "I, Robot" movie, you can get some sense of what others think these things could look like.

Unfortunately, that's all the info there seems to be.

Answer 2

Essentially it's a plot device used to mean "unknown future technology".

Asimov deliberately didn't talk about the technical aspects of his robots, so that he could focus on the characters involved. This is one of the main reasons why his stories written in the 1940s and 1950s aren't too dated; because he didn't talk about transistors and vacuum tubes, he talked about fictional technologies like the positronic brain.

Answer 3

"Positrons travelling about a sponge like substance" is, I believe, the way it was expressed.

Answer 4

Asimov never explained in too much detail any of the technologies he used on his works.

The positronic brain is the best example of it. There is an interview on the 70's (when he worked on real science papers) when he defined an aproximation of a positronic brain:

"It's a brain made by the men, so any brain, ever ours is positronic"

I always thought that a positronic brain is a brain designed by men, not by "god". That's the best aproximation that I can think of

Answer 5

I remember reading somewhere Asimov saying that that when he was writing his first robot stories, the Positron had just been discovered (1932) and so it was a new cutting-edge idea.

Answer 6

According to The Caves of Steel, this brain has very interesting specifics. It cannot be constructed without the Three laws, because no math theory of such brains existed. The only math theory that exists, according to the novel, only allows the construction of positronic brain that follows the Three laws. It is impossible at hardware level to do otherwise (such constructions are unknown).

Later in some works Asimov described possible workarounds like introducing the Zero law. But no math theory for it was ever developed, therefore it can be seen as a bug in R. Daniel brain, and nothing more.