History of The Concept
The idea of non-biological self-replicating systems was introduced in Samuel Butler's article "Darwin Among the Machines" published only a few years after The Origin of Species. As a serious proposal, it was first suggested by mathematician John Von Neumann in the late 1940s when he proposed a kinematic self-reproducing automaton model as a thought experiment. See Von Neumann, J., 1966, The Theory of Self-reproducing Automata, A. Burks, ed., Univ. of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL.
Read more about this topic: Clanking Replicator
Famous quotes containing the words history of the, history of, history and/or concept:
“This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation, because as a result of what happened in this week, the world is bigger, infinitely.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)
“The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“False history gets made all day, any day,
the truth of the new is never on the news
False history gets written every day
...
the lesbian archaeologist watches herself
sifting her own life out from the shards she’s piecing,
asking the clay all questions but her own.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Jesus abolished the very concept of “guilt”Mhe denied any cleavage between God and man. He lived this unity of God and man as his “glad tidings” ... and not as a prerogative!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)