Universal constructor
Encyclopedia
A universal constructor may refer to
- Universal assembler, a hypothesized nanotechnology device for building a large class of nanomachines including itself, or
- Von Neumann universal constructorVon Neumann universal constructorJohn von Neumann's Universal Constructor is a self-replicating machine in a cellular automata environment. It was designed in the 1940s, without the use of a computer. The fundamental details of the machine were published in von Neumann's book Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata, completed in...
, an abstract device capable of constructing all constructible artifacts of an environment. The notion of same, as described by John Von Neumann via his kinematic (robotic) and tessellation (cellular automata) models.