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Fifty Years of Research on Self-Replication: An Overview
Open accessAbstract
The study of artificial self-replicating structures or machines has been taking place now for almost half a century. My goal in this article is to present an overview of research carried out in the domain of self-replication over the past 50 years, starting from von Neumann's work in the late 1940s and continuing to the most recent research efforts. I shall concentrate on computational models, that is, ones that have been studied from a computer science point of view, be it theoretical or experimental. The systems are divided into four major classes, according to the model on which they are based: cellular automata, computer programs, strings (or strands), or an altogether different approach. With the advent of new materials, such as synthetic molecules and nanomachines, it is quite possible that we shall see this somewhat theoretical domain of study producing practical, real-world applications.
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“The search for other formal systems able to self-replicate, usually defined on a two-dimensional lattice, has shown simpler examples with a much smaller number of parts than those proposed initially by von Neumann [64,153].”
From Fundamental constraints to the logic of living systems (2024) · cites this paper as [153]
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Fundamental constraints to the logic of living systems
Solé, R., Kempes, C. P., Corominas-Murtra, B., De Domenico, M., Kolchinsky, A., Lachmann, M., Libby, E., Saavedra, S., Smith, E., & Wolpert, D. (2024) · Interface Focus · doi:10.1098/rsfs.2024.0010 · Cited by 34
“The search for other formal systems able to self-replicate, usually defined on a two-dimensional lattice, has shown simpler examples with a much smaller number of parts than those proposed initially by von Neumann [64,153].”
BackgroundZhang, J., Yuan, B., & Zhang, Q. (2026) · Entropy · doi:10.3390/e28090951 · Cited by 2
Metadata
- Authors
- Sipper, M.
- Affiliations
- École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (CH)
- Corresponding author
- Sipper, Moshe
- ORCID
- Sipper, Moshe
- Venue
- Artificial Life
- Publisher
- MIT Press
- Published
- 1998-07
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 237-257
- ISSN
- 1064-5462 (ISSN-L)
- 1530-9185
- OpenAlex
- W2075210082
- Cited by
- 231
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 5
- FWCI
- 1.11
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- infoscience.epfl.ch
- Licence
- cc-by-nc-nd
- Locations
- Artificial Life (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Infoscience (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computational Theory and Mathematics › Cellular Automata and Applications
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computational Theory and Mathematics › Computability, Logic, AI Algorithms
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Theoretical Computer Science › DNA and Biological Computing
- Keywords
- self-replication, self-replicating machines, John von Neumann, cellular automata, computational model, synthetic compounds, nanorobots
- MeSH terms
- Biology, Computers, Logic, Models, Biological, Software, History, 20th Century
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- The paper
- Sipper, M. (1998). Fifty Years of Research on Self-Replication: An Overview. Artificial Life. https://doi.org/10.1162/106454698568576
