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.
Recommended Citation
Laing, Richard Alan, "Automation self-reference" (1977). Graduate Dissertations and Theses. 362.
https://orb.binghamton.edu/dissertation_and_theses/362
