John von Neumann and the Universal Constructor

John von Neumann was one of the twentieth century's greatest intellects. He invented the Universal Constructor - a self-copying manufacturing machine - as a theoretical concept. The idea appeared in his book The Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata, edited by A. W. Burks and published posthumously by the University of Illinois Press in 1966.

There is a good biography of von Neumann by William Poundstone called Prisoner's Dilemma, and typing his name into a search engine will produce thousands of sites devoted to his life and work.

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