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In von Neumann's cellular automaton, the finite state machines (or cells) are arranged in a two-dimensional Cartesian grid, and interface with the surrounding four cells. As von Neumann's cellular automaton was the first example to use this arrangement, it is known as the von Neumann neighbourhood. The set of FSAs define a cell space of ...
It was designed in the 1940s, without the use of a computer. The fundamental details of the machine were published in von Neumann's book Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata, completed in 1966 by Arthur W. Burks after von Neumann's death. [2] It is regarded as foundational for automata theory, complex systems, and artificial life.
Von Neumann also worked on what he called the universal constructor, a self-replicating machine that would be able to evolve and which he formalized in a cellular automata environment. Notably, Von Neumann's Self-Reproducing Automata scheme posited that open-ended evolution requires inherited information to be copied and passed to offspring ...
The Von Neumann universal constructor based on the von Neumann cellular automaton was fleshed out in his posthumous Theory of Self Reproducing Automata. [295] The von Neumann neighborhood, in which each cell in a two-dimensional grid has the four orthogonally adjacent grid cells as neighbors, continues to be used for other cellular automata. [296]
Self-replication is a fundamental feature of life. It was proposed that self-replication emerged in the evolution of life when a molecule similar to a double-stranded polynucleotide (possibly like RNA) dissociated into single-stranded polynucleotides and each of these acted as a template for synthesis of a complementary strand producing two double stranded copies. [4]
The notion of a self-reproducing computer program can be traced back to initial theories about the operation of complex automata. [1] John von Neumann showed that in theory a program could reproduce itself. This constituted a plausibility result in computability theory. Fred Cohen experimented with computer viruses and confirmed Neumann's ...
Neumann wrote a paper entitled "The general and logical theory of automata" for the Hixon Symposium in 1948. [9] Ulam was the one who suggested using a discrete system for creating a reductionist model of self-replication. [12] [13] Nils Aall Barricelli performed many of the earliest explorations of these models of artificial life.
This last concept can be attributed to von Neumann's work on self reproducing automata, where he holds a self description necessary for any nontrivial (generalised) self reproducing system to avoid interferences. Von Neumann planned to design such a system for a model chemistry, too.