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Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata. by John VON NEUMANN
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VON NEUMANN, John.
Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata.
Edited and compiled by Arthur W. Banks.
Stock Code 113044
Urbana & London, University of Illinois Press, 1966
Current price$1,269.00
Von neumann's prescient theory of self-replication in computing. First edition of this important work on self-reproduction in machines by one of the leading figures in the development of modern computing, scarce in the dust jacket. Von Neumann became interested in the abilities of computers to self-reproduce during his work on the Institute for Advanced Studies computer project, noting that, since a Turing machine can make exact copies of any readable sequence, it can copy itself. He hoped to formulate a theory that would be general enough to explain and predict self-replication in both machines and living things. 'Viewing the logic of self-replication and self-reproduction through the lens of formal logic and and self-referential systems, von Neumann applied the results of Gödel and Turing to the foundations of biology' with his conjectures hitting 'the heart of the probability or improbability of the origin of life' (Dyson, Turing's Cathedral, pp. 283-285). Together with Stanislaw Ulam, von Neumann attempted to develop these ideas for publication, but they remained unfinished at his death. 'The incomplete manuscript, including a lengthy introduction based on a series of five lectures given by von Neumann at the University of Illinois in 1949, was eventually assembled, with careful editing by Arthur Burks, and published as Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata almost ten years after von Neumann's death... Our understanding of self-reproduction in biology, and our development of self-reproducing technology, proceeded almost exactly as the proposed theory described' (Dyson, p. 286).
First edition, first printing; 8vo; original green cloth, titles to spine and upper board in black, in the lightly rubbed jacket that is tanned along the spine panel with some nicks and short splits at the edges, very good; 388pp.
Hook & Norman, Origins of Cyberspace 971. - More Information
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