Author: John Von Neumann
Publisher: Urbana : University of Illinois Press
ISBN:
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description

Author: Sir Paul Nurse
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781922310262
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
Life is all around us, abundant and diverse. It is truly a marvel. But what does it actually mean to be alive, and how do we decide what is living and what is not? After a lifetime of studying life, Nobel Prize-winner Sir Paul Nurse, one of the world's leading scientists, has taken on the challenge of defining it. Written with great personality and charm, his accessible guide takes readers on a journey to discover biology's five great building blocks, demonstrates how biology has changed and is changing the world, and reveals where research is headed next. To survive all the challenges that face the human race today - population growth, pandemics, food shortages, climate change - it is vital that we first understand what life is. Never before has the question 'What is life?' been answered with such insight, clarity, and humanity, and never at a time more urgent than now. 'Paul Nurse is about as distinguished a scientist as there could be. He is also a great communicator. This book explains, in a way that is both clear and elegant, how the processes of life unfold, and does as much as science can to answer the question posed by the title. It's also profoundly important, at a time when the world is connected so closely that any new illness can sweep from nation to nation with immense speed, that all of us - including politicians - should be as well-informed as possible. This book provides the sort of clarity and understanding that could save many thousands of lives. I learned a great deal, and I enjoyed the process enormously.' -Sir Philip Pullman 'A nearly perfect guide to the wonder and complexity of existence.' -Bill Bryson 'Nurse provides a concise, lucid response to an age-old question. His writing is not just informed by long experience, but also wise, visionary, and personal. I read the book in one sitting, and felt exhilarated by the end, as though I'd run for miles - from the author's own garden into the interior of the cell, back in time to humankind's most distant ancestors, and through the laboratory of a dedicated scientist at work on what he most loves to do.' -Dava Sobel

Author: Tim Taylor
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030482340
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 121

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Book Description
Is it possible to design robots and other machines that can reproduce and evolve? And, if so, what are the implications: for the machines, for ourselves, for our environment, and for the future of life on Earth and elsewhere? In this book the authors provide a chronological survey and comprehensive archive of the early history of thought about machine self-reproduction and evolution. They discuss contributions from philosophy, science fiction, science and engineering, and uncover many examples that have never been discussed in the Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Life literature before now. In the final chapter they provide a synthesis of the concepts discussed, offer their views on the field’s future directions, and call for a broad community discussion about the significant implications of intelligent evolving machines. The book will be of interest to general readers, and a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, and historians engaged with ideas in artificial intelligence, artificial life, robotics, and evolutionary computing.

Author: Gregory J. Chaitin
Publisher: Pantheon
ISBN: 0375423141
Category : Bioinformatics
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
Explains how evolution works on a mathematical level, arguing that mathematical theory is an essential part of evolution while highlighting mathematical principles in the biological world.

Author: Tullio Ceccherini-Silberstein
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642140343
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 446

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Book Description
Cellular automata were introduced in the first half of the last century by John von Neumann who used them as theoretical models for self-reproducing machines. The authors present a self-contained exposition of the theory of cellular automata on groups and explore its deep connections with recent developments in geometric group theory, symbolic dynamics, and other branches of mathematics and theoretical computer science. The topics treated include in particular the Garden of Eden theorem for amenable groups, and the Gromov-Weiss surjunctivity theorem as well as the solution of the Kaplansky conjecture on the stable finiteness of group rings for sofic groups. The volume is entirely self-contained, with 10 appendices and more than 300 exercises, and appeals to a large audience including specialists as well as newcomers in the field. It provides a comprehensive account of recent progress in the theory of cellular automata based on the interplay between amenability, geometric and combinatorial group theory, symbolic dynamics and the algebraic theory of group rings which are treated here for the first time in book form.

Author: John Johnston
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262101262
Category : Artificial intelligence
Languages : en
Pages : 477

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Book Description
An account of the creation of new forms of life and intelligence in cybernetics, artificial life, and artificial intelligence that analyzes both the similarities and the differences among these sciences in actualizing life.The Allure of Machinic Life

Author: Robert A. Freitas
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780367813901
Category : SCIENCE
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
This book offers a general review of the voluminous theoretical and experimental literature pertaining to physical self-replicating systems. The principal focus here is on self-replicating machine systems. Most importantly, we are concerned with kinematic self-replicating machines: systems in which actual physical objects, not mere patterns of information, undertake their own replication. Following a brief burst of activity in the 1950s and 1980s, the field of kinematic replicating systems design received new interest in the 1990s with the emerging recognition of the feasibility of molecular nanotechnology. The field has experienced a renaissance of research activity since 1999 as researchers have come to recognize that replicating systems are simple enough to permit experimental laboratory demonstrations of working devices.

Author: Eric Filiol
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 2287280995
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
A precise and exhaustive description of different types of malware from three different points of view, namely the theoretical fundamentals of computer virology, algorithmic and practical aspects of viruses and their potential applications to various areas.

Author: Ananyo Bhattacharya
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324004002
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
An electrifying biography of one of the most extraordinary scientists of the twentieth century and the world he made. The smartphones in our pockets and computers like brains. The vagaries of game theory and evolutionary biology. Nuclear weapons and self-replicating spacecrafts. All bear the fingerprints of one remarkable, yet largely overlooked, man: John von Neumann. Born in Budapest at the turn of the century, von Neumann is one of the most influential scientists to have ever lived. A child prodigy, he mastered calculus by the age of eight, and in high school made lasting contributions to mathematics. In Germany, where he helped lay the foundations of quantum mechanics, and later at Princeton, von Neumann’s colleagues believed he had the fastest brain on the planet—bar none. He was instrumental in the Manhattan Project and the design of the atom bomb; he helped formulate the bedrock of Cold War geopolitics and modern economic theory; he created the first ever programmable digital computer; he prophesized the potential of nanotechnology; and, from his deathbed, he expounded on the limits of brains and computers—and how they might be overcome. Taking us on an astonishing journey, Ananyo Bhattacharya explores how a combination of genius and unique historical circumstance allowed a single man to sweep through a stunningly diverse array of fields, sparking revolutions wherever he went. The Man from the Future is an insightful and thrilling intellectual biography of the visionary thinker who shaped our century.

Author: John F Hart
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487589824
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
This book presents the papers delivered at the Conference on Systems and Computer Science held at the University of Western Ontario in September 1965. The primary purposes of the Conference were the promotion of research and the development of the teaching of computer science in Canadian universities. The papers focus attention on some of the concepts of Computer Science as a new field of study and at the same time provide a background for scientists looking at the subject for the first time. The chief developments in computer science have been concerned with the "applied" rather than the "pure" areas of the field: numerical analysis, applied statistics and operations research, and data processing. But there is something more to computers than the physical components and this book represents an attempt to correct the imbalance between "applied" and "pure" by drawing attention to certain theoretical aspects of computer and information science. Among the topics discussed are the theory of finite and infinite automata, aspects of formal language theory, heuristic and non-heuristic approaches to theorem proving and the mathematical formulation of the theory of general systems. There are also references to the problems of machine design, to software systems including higher-level languages, to multiple control computer models and to applied systems. This collection of papers will appeal first to graduate students and professors in Computer Science. It will also be of interest to computer scientists in industry and in government and university research groups and to the scientific public interested in discovering some of the principal ingredients and directions of the computer and information sciences.