Document Type

Dissertation

Date of Award

1977

Keywords

Machine theory

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Mechanical Engineering

First Advisor

Howard Pattee

Second Advisor

Andrew Barto

Third Advisor

Dennis Geller

Abstract

In this paper an abstract, deterministic, discrete kinematic automaton system for expressing machine computation, construction, and self—inspection has been designed. Burks's conjecture that a machine can by self-inspection obtain its own complete structural description and store the information sufficient to recover this description, within a proper part of itself is confirmed. We also exhibit a machine which though not initially equipped with a structural description of itself, can reproduce itself, thus providing a counterexample to a conjecture of von Neumann and confirming a conjecture of Arbib.

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