Science: Mouse with a Memory

In the Bell Telephone Laboratories at Murray Hill, N. J. lives a mechanical mouse named Theseus, the creature of Dr. Claude Shannon, Bell computer authority. It was named after the Greek mythological hero who went into the Cretan labyrinth and slew the Minotaur. But Theseus Mouse is cleverer than Theseus the Greek, who could not trust his memory but had to unwind a ball of string to guide him out of the labyrinth.

Bell Telephone's labyrinth is about half as big as a desk top and is fitted with aluminum partitions which can be shifted around among 40 different slots. Theseus himself...