Re: Von Neumann machine - Wikipedia
At 03:36 PM 4/8/04 -0400, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
As someone who was a Gerard O'Neill <http://www.ssi.org/obit.html> fan long
The L-5 dude? I never knew he dabbled in mental-nano-masturbation. I'm familiar with his macroscopic living-in-$pace speculations.
The term von Neumann machine also refers to the idea of a self-reproducing machine, which was first examined in a rigorous manner and popularized by John von Neumann who called it a "Universal Constructor." In principle, if a machine (for example an industrial robot) could be given enough
Just remember that Johnny was playing symbol-games, having a little cellular automata fun to prove it could be done. Not really surprising once you "get" the concept of a description-of-a-machine being processed by a machine. BTW, surely you can find a better ref than Wpedia?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 At 4:36 PM -0700 4/8/04, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
The L-5 dude? I never knew he dabbled in mental-nano-masturbation. I'm familiar with his macroscopic living-in-$pace speculations.
No. He talked about Von Neumann machines. We don' need no steenkin' nano, gringo, especially circa 1983 or so. Conceivably you could build machines that replicate themselves without manipulating individual atoms, yes?
BTW, surely you can find a better ref than Wpedia?
Why? It pops out of google just fine, it answers your point adequately, and it's what I remember from the Old Days, back when, as an infant, I played at the feet of the Old Ones. :-). Besides, my n-ty volume set of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica is in the master library -- or is it the smoking room -- of the country house, so I don't have it at hand at the moment... ;-). Cheers, RAH -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQHXnb8PxH8jf3ohaEQJxgQCg4czdmcdd3a3tdGxi6Rgxkw1pRW0An1SK QY+XU/r+wnvFHPb10wSV9GWf =+GM+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
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