Self-reproducing machines

In the 1950s, biologists (notably Francis Crick and James Watson) discovered the molecular basis for information coding in DNA and established that the workings of cells were molecular machines tvith understandable structure and function. Mathematician John von Neuman developed a mathematical theory of self-reproducing machines based on the biological theories. 

Living beings are teleonomic machines, self-constructing machines and self-reproducing machines. There are, in other words, three fundamental characteristics common to all living beings teleonomy, autonomous morphogenesis and invariant reproduction. 

Zykov V, Mytilinaios E, Adams B, Lipson H (2005) Self-reproducing machines. Nature 435 163-164... 

Zykov, V., Mytilinaios, E., Adams, B., Lipson, H. (2005). Self-reproducing machines. Nature, 435, 163-164. Available from http //creativemachines.cornell. edu/papers/Nature05 Zykov.pdf... 

Pesavento, U. (1996). An implementation of von Neumann s self-reproducing machine. Artificial Life 2 (4), 337-354. 

Von Neumann was able to construct a self-reproducing UTM embedded within a 29-state/5-cell neighborhood two-dimensional cellular automaton, composed of several tens of thousands of cells. It was, to say the least, an enormously complex machine . Its set of 29 states consist largely of various logical building blocks (AND and OR gates, for example), several types of transmission lines, data encoders and recorders, clocks, etc. Von Neumann was unfortunately unable to finish the proof that his machine was a UTM before his death, but the proof was later completed and published by Arthur Burks [vonN66]. 

Suppose we start with an automaton A that is given a tape with a blueprint B a on it. The composite machine will then construct a copy of A but it is not, in and of itself, self-reproducing i.e, the aggregate machine A + creates A, not A + B. This situation is not remedied by simply adding a description of B to B, since in this case A + yields A + B and not A + B +Ba Thus, whatever we... 

For years, scientists have dreamt of making robots that can self-reproduce. Someday, such a machine could be sent to explore a distant planet, where it could clone itself. 

Quality assurance in production is the result of careful planning. In their discussion on quality in manufacturing, Ekvall and Juran [15] refer to setup dominance and machine dominance. The former approach seeks to create a highly reproducible process, which would include a means of self-control. The latter is concerned with the variability that is caused by the equipment s performance. Many older production processes appeared to rely on the machine-dominance strategy because they relied on in-process checks and adjustments as needed. Process validation, however, leans toward setup dominance because this activity seeks to document the fact that the variable process parameters are under control, which means that the in-process test results will be within their specification limits. 

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