Kinematics, Polynomials and Computers–A Brief History

Select this link to the .pdf of Kinematics, Polynomials, and Computers–A Brief History, which is a summary of the history of the kinematics of mechanisms and robotics with a focus on the challenge of solving the polynomial equations that arise in their study.  It is a draft of my February 2011 editorial for the ASME Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics.
***Update*** This version has a correction to references [29] and [30].