From: monte.davis@verizon.net   
      
   "vincent p. norris"  wrote:   
      
   >this is the first I've heard of   
   >a VN machine.  Did he first suggest it?   
      
   The idea had been kicked around occasionally in earlier futurism and   
   SF. Alan Turing's "universal computer" (one that could in principle   
   emulate any computer) got Von Neumann thinking about a "universal   
   constructor" that could do all that *and* copy itself (and a bag of   
   chips).   
      
   In the posthumous _Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata_  he put a   
   clear focus on exponential growth and speculated about potential uses   
   in space, where there would be a premium in getting the most bang per   
   kg. from what we could afford to send out. Freeman Dyson has taken it   
   farther, suggesting that microelectronics and genetic engineering   
   could combine to yield space-going cyborgs that might (among other   
   things) gather and process asteroid resources so that later human   
   explorers would find water, O2 etc. waiting for them.   
      
   And, of course, there's a direct line from von Neumann to Drexler and   
   the nanocult. Even if one admits any limitation to what one nanobot   
   could do, it can be handwaved away with enough doublings.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)