An amusing story, the truth of which I am uncertain.
Roger Bacon was said to have built a
mechanical head that worked from a
clockwork like mechanism that could
think and
act, but not
speak. Weary of
hacking for the night, he decided to go to
sleep, but he told his
apprentice to immediately
wake him up if the head did anything. A little later, the head spoke, and it said, "
Time is." The
apprentice was too
afraid to wake
Bacon up, however, and so he didn't do anything about it. A bit after that, the head spoke again, saying, "
Time was." Again, the
apprentice was much too afraid to awake his master. The head then spoke a third time, this time saying, "
Time past." The head then proceeded to blow up. Finally, the
apprentice was freaked out enough to wake
Bacon up. Unfortunately,
Bacon could not repair the head, and it never worked in any capacity again.
What do you suppose
Bacon did to his
apprentice?
And the
moral of the story is:
sleep is the
adversary, and you should never trust anything important to your
apprentice (I know I never do).