Robotics Reference
In-Depth Information
air. These are just a few of the purposes of developing an electronic nose.
One application for this technology that has attracted considerable atten-
tion in recent years has been the replacement of sniffer dogs, which are
expensive and time consuming to train, by electronic devices that sniff
out explosives as a counter-terrorism measure. A similar application is
their use to locate land-mines, of which there are estimated to be more
than 110 million around the world.
The Recognition of Creative Style
Every creator in the fields of art, music and literature has his or her own
individual style, and those creators who are well-known have their styles
widely discussed and dissected. Show an art enthusiast a painting by Van
Gogh and it will almost certainly be recognized as such, even though
the enthusiast might never before have seen that particular painting or
its subject. Play a Chopin nocturne to a classical music aficionado and
the response will most probably be something like “Oh, that's Chopin”.
So distinctive are the styles of many of the best practitioners of their art
form, that they are easily recognisable.
Artistic Style
When the correct identification of the creator of an artistic work is a
matter of some importance, as it is in the art world, for example, when
a painting by a “master” comes up for sale, even the most expert of hu-
man “experts” may be proved wrong. There are countless cases, many
of them quite amusing, involving art forgers who could paint a “genuine
Rembrandt” or some other old master to order. One of the most famous
examples involves forgeries by Henricus van Meegeren. After the end of
World War II, the Dutch authorities started to hunt for citizens who had
collaborated with the Nazis during the Occupation. It was discovered
that a painting by Vermeer,
The Woman Taken in Adultery
, had been sold
to Hermann Goring, and the trail led back to van Meeregen, who was ar-
rested and charged with collaborating with the enemy. After six weeks in
jail he announced, to everyone's amazement and disbelief, that the paint-
ing was not a Vermeer but his own work, a forgery. He also claimed to
have painted five other so-called Vermeers, as well as two paintings that
he had passed off as being by another Dutch artist, Pieter de Hooghs.
In order to substantiate his claims van Meeregen said that, while under
